Dynamic of Destruction: Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War (Making of the Modern World) - Hardcover

Kramer, Professor Alan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0192803425 ISBN 13: 9780192803429

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2007

Synopsis

On 26 August 1914 the world-famous university library in the Belgian town of Louvain was looted and destroyed by German troops. The international community reacted in horror and the behavior of the Germans at Louvain came to be seen as the beginning of a different style of war, without the rules that had governed military conflict up to that point--a more total war, in which enemy civilians and their entire culture were now legitimate targets.
As award-winning historian Alan Kramer shows in this gripping and insightful volume, the destruction at Louvain was simply one symbolic moment in a vast wave of cultural destruction and mass killing that swept across the map of Europe at the time of the First World War. Using a wide range of examples and striking eye-witness accounts from England, France, Germany, and elsewhere, Kramer brings home the reality of the Great War, painting a picture of an entire continent plunging into a chilling new world of mass mobilization, total warfare, and the celebration of nationalist or ethnic violence--often directed expressly at the enemy's civilian population. Kramer examines the psychological impact of trench warfare, addresses the question of German atrocities (were the Germans particularly barbaric, or was savage behavior common on all sides?), and offers a disturbing summation of the war's impact on European culture.
From the Western Front to the Balkans, from Italy to the war in the East, the First World War was the most apocalyptic the world had ever known. This book tells you how and why the civilized nations of Europe descended into unprecedented orgy of destruction.

About this title

About the Author

Alan Kramer is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Modern History and fellow of Trinity College Dublin. He is the co-author of German Atrocities, 1914: A History of Denial.

Review

"Kramer's careful weighing of the available evidence, and his insistence on taking seriously the way that events were understood at the time rather than perpetuating historical myth, provides an instructive methodology for future historians. In its centennial year, our understanding of the First World War is still incomplete. Alan Kramer shows us why it is so important to continue to investigate its events and interpretations."--Library of Social Science Book Reviews

"This stimulating, scholarly and shrewd book is as rich in original ideas and accounts of unfamiliar aspects of World War I as it is energetic in its revisionism."--New York Times Book Review

"An invaluable contribution in Great War historiography and pedagogy."--World History Bulletin

"An ambitious book in a class by itself, deserving of careful reading by any WWI scholar."--Camaraderie: The Journal of the Western Front Association

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0192803425
• ISBN 13: 9780192803429
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 448