where can i find more books on WWI?

Question

I want to become a historian when i grow up, and I'm in 12th grade, about ready to graduate in june 2008, and apply to virginia western comm. coll., transfer to va. tech., go for a bachelors, go to graduate school, graduate with a master's to become a historian, and i'm starting my search for books on WWI to put in my home office for research when i grow up. where can i find books on WWI? A bookstore in person? a bookstore online? where? please Also give me websites to finds info on WWI, and some suggestion book titles i could search for.

Answer 1

it makes me feel a little better about the fate of the Republic that at least on person is interested in history!

having read extensively.....to the tune of probably several
hundred books over the years., a great book on the opening of WW1 is Barbara Tuchmans The Guns of August.....in fact all her works are good.

High;y recommended is David Mc McCullough

and most highly of all, a man who's books you should read and marvel at and read again over the years is William Manchester.......for the origins of WW1, the sections in "The Arms of Krupp" on how that Germanic family gave three generations German leaders the tools to wage war; in "American Caesar" Douglas MacArthur's experiences at the front in WW1 as colonel; and then Manchester's defining 2 volume biography of Churchill....... "The Last Lion"

any good library should have them; any good on line bookstore will have them.

an appendage:a sample of Manchester's writing, from his introduction to the Churchill biography, on the days of Dunkirk :

L

THE French had collapsed. The Dutch had been overwhelmed. The Belgians had surrendered. The British army, trapped, fought free and fell back toward the Channel ports, converging on a fishing town whose name was then spelled Dunkerque.
Behind them lay the sea.
It was England’s greatest crisis since the Norman conquest, vaster than those precipitated by Philip II’s Spanish Armada, Louis XIV’s triumphant armies, or Napoleon’s invasion barges massed at Boulogne. This time Britain stood alone. If the Germans crossed the Channel and established uncontested beachheads, all would be lost, for it is a peculiarity of England’s island that its southern weald is indefensible against disciplined troops. Now the 220,000 Tommies at Dunkirk, Britain’s only hope, seemed doomed. On the Flanders beaches they stood around in angular, existential attitudes, like dim purgatorial souls awaiting disposition. There appeared to be no way to bring more than a handful of them home. The Royal Navy’s vessels were inadequate. King George VI has been told that they would be lucky to save 17,000. The House of Commons was warned to prepare for “hard and heavy tidings.”

Then, from the streams and estuaries of Kent and Dover, a strange fleet appeared: trawlers and tugs, scows and fishing sloops, lifeboats and pleasure craft, smacks and coasters; the island ferry Grade Fields; Tom Sopwith’s America’s Cup challenger Endeavour; even the London fire brigade’s fire-float Massey Shaw — all of them manned by civilian volunteers:

English fathers, sailing to rescue England’s exhausted, bleeding sons.

Even today what followed seems miraculous. Not only were Britain’s soldiers delivered; so were French support troops: a total of 338,682 men. But wars are not won by fleeing from the enemy. And British morale was still unequal to the imminent challenge. These were the same people who, less than a year earlier, had rejoiced in the fake peace bought by the betrayal of Czechoslovakia at Munich. Most of their leaders and most of the press remained craven.

It had been over a thousand years since Alfred the Great had made himself and his countrymen one and sent them into battle transformed. Now in this new exigency, confronted by the mightiest conqueror Europe had ever known, England looked for another Alfred, a figure cast in a mold which, by the time of the Dunkirk deliverance, seemed to have been forever lost.

England’s new leader, were he to prevail, would have to stand for everything England’s decent, civilized Establishment had rejected. They viewed Adolf Hitler as the product of complex social and historical forces. Their successor would have to be a passionate Manichaean who saw the world as a medieval struggle to the death between the powers of good and the powers of evil, who held that individuals are responsible for their actions and that the German dictator was therefore wicked.

A believer in martial glory was required, one who saw splendor in the ancient parades of victorious legions through Persepolis and could rally the nation to brave the coming German fury.
An embodiment of fading Victorian standards was wanted: a tribune for honor, loyalty, duty, and the supreme virtue of action; one who would never compromise with iniquity, who could create a sublime mood and thus give men heroic visions of what they were and might become.

Like Adolf Hitler he would have to be a leader of intuitive genius, a born demagogue in the original sense of the word, a believer in the supremacy of his race and his national destiny, an artist who knew how to gather the blazing light of history into his prism and then distort it to his ends, an embodiment of inflexible resolution who could impose his will and his imagination on his people — a great tragedian who understood the appeal of martyrdom and could tell his followers the worst, hurling it to them like great hunks of bleeding meat, persuading them that the year of Dunkirk would be one in which it was “equally good to live or to die” — who could if necessary be just as cruel, just as cunning, and just as ruthless as Hitler but who could win victories without enslaving populations, or preaching supernaturalism, or foisting off myths of his infallibility, or destroying, or even warping, the libertarian institutions he had sworn to preserve.

Such a man, if he existed, would be England’s last chance.

In London there was such a man.

Answer 2

I think there are three books, that I found tremendously illuminating.

1. Guns Germs and Steel - this is a very popular - and relatively recent book which covers - in breathtaking clarity - the broad story of mankind. I think the author (Jared Diamond) is a little anti-European in his sentiments, but having said that his primary theses are largely very sound and will (in the not too distant future) be probably regarded as among the great books of the late 20th or early 21st century.

2. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers - Paul Kennedy's reading of history and his nearly clinical analysis of how the various great european powers - rose, maintained and/or fell in relative strength to one another.

3. "Godel, Escher and Bach" and also "Metamagical Themas", both by Professor Douglas Hofstadter's these are largely in the form of essays and deal in game theory - largely they may seem to have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with war or warfare, but do have to do with game / decision theory.

This is an advanced logical form of thinking which is used to help make correct decisions based on largely imperfect or incomplete information. It is NOT used nearly frequently enough.

These are written as / in the form of magazine articles and are individually VERY approachable, however some of the Dr's more involved discussions would involve at least some basic math/logic or computer science. The books have also been in publication now for over 20 years (nearly 30) and so are a little dated but otherwise hold up remarkably well.

4. "On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace" -

Although the author Prof. Kagan is often cited as a "member"
of the neoconservative pools, I think that it's fair to say that only from a position of undiminished hubris is it possible to view his political ideology as being "good" for much of anyone, it is not a little tragic that those so associated in the administration, did not consider this book more closely when considering the current national obligations.

Having said that, Professor Kagan's analysis of the Pre-WW I European Theater is very nearly OUTSTANDING.

It is clear to me why Chancellor Bismark is considered by many as transcendent of nation, along with Lincoln as one of the great leaders of human history.

Answer 3

Bookyards has over 100 ebooks on World War one at http://www.bookyards.com/categories.html?type=books&category_id=1409

Bookyards is a free online library and book portal at http://www.bookyards.com

Answer 4

Your local library?