14-18: Understanding the Great War

With this brilliantly innovative book, reissued for the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I, St phane Audoin-Rouzeau and Annette Becker have shown that the Great War was the matrix on which all subsequent disasters of the twentieth century were formed. Three elements of the conflict, all too often neglected or denied, are identified as those that must be grasped if we are to understand the war: First, what inspired its unprecedented physical brutality, and what were the effects of tolerating such violence? Second, how did citizens of the belligerent states come to be driven by vehement nationalistic and racist impulses? Third, how did the tens of millions bereaved by the war come to terms with the agonizing pain? With its strikingly original interpretative strength and its wealth of compelling documentary evidence drawn from all sides in the conflict, 14-18: Understanding the Great War has quickly established itself as a classic in the history of modern warfare.

About the Author:

St phane Audoin-Rouzeau is the Director of the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences and co-director of the Research Center of the Museum of the Great War (Historial de la Grande Guere) in the Somme.

Annette Becker is Professor of Contemporary History at Paris West University Nanterre La D fense and a senior member of the Institut Universitaire de France.

Their extensive publications about World War I include the coauthored work, 14-18: Understanding the Great War.