Behind the Lines: WWI's little-known story of German occupation, Belgian resistance, and the band of Yanks who helped save millions from starvation. - Softcover

Miller, Jeffrey B.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0990689301 ISBN 13: 9780990689300

Publisher: Milbrown Press, 2014

Synopsis

During World War I, the Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB) initiated, organized, and supervised the largest food and relief drive the world has ever seen. Working in concert with its counterpart in Belgium, the Comite National, the CRB fed and clothed for four years more than 9 million Belgians and northern French trapped behind German lines. Young, idealistic Americans volunteered to go into German-occupied Belgium to guarantee the food would not be taken by the Germans. They had to maintain strict neutrality in what they said and did as they watched the Belgians suffer under the harsh German regime. Covering August 1914 through December 1914, this nonfiction book follows a handful of CRB delegates, a twenty-two-year-old Belgian woman, two U.S. diplomats, the head of the CRB, and a Belgian businessman and a Belgian priest who team up to fight the German occupation. It is a story that few have heard.

About this title

About the Author

Jeffrey B. Miller has been a writer, editor, and author for nearly forty years. His career includes starting six magazines (city, regional, and national), being editor-in-chief of five inflight magazines, and director of communications for AAA Colorado. His is also the author of Stapleton International Airport: The First Fifty Years (Pruett Publishing, Boulder, CO, 1983), which was the first history book about a major U.S. airport; and co-author with Dr. Gordon Ehlers of Facing Your Fifties: Every Man's Reference to Mid-life Health (M. Evans & Co., New York, 2002), which was one of only three health books that Publishers Weekly included in its "Best Books of 2002."

Review

KIRKUS STAR REVIEW
"Just in time for the Great War's centennial, this valuable narrative reprises a dramatic chapter of world history that rarely takes center stage in history books...the pages fly by, thanks to Miller's consistently smooth prose and careful scene-setting. He effectively captures the human drama... Miller writes that his goal was to write for people "who never read history books"; he accomplishes that splendidly, while also creating a work that scholars will admire. An excellent history that should catapult Miller to the top tier of popular historians." Kirkus Reviews

"The Indie We Love...Writers like Miller bring to life the people, the heroes we do not know..." Monica Carter, Foreword Magazine.

"...Miller, fascinated with this largely forgotten slice of history, has published "Behind the Lines" (Millbrown Press), a fascinating look at the first five months of the relief campaign..."
William Porter, Sunday Denver Post, Oct. 12, 2014
 

"...The impressive research and generally crisp writing transforms what could have been an arid study into a dramatic and at times inspiring narrative. Miller weaves back and forth between the grand sweep of the invasion of Belgium and up-close, anecdotal material and observations concerning his grandmother's family and others in the path of the Kaiser's troops..." Alan Prendergast, Westword, Denver's alternative weekly newspaper, Oct. 22, 2014

STARRED REVIEW
One of the historian's jobs is to take all the shards--all the accounts, statistics, stories, and documents of a particular time--and make them click into place like a pattern in a kaleidoscope. Jeffrey B. Miller does this admirably in Behind the Lines. Miller's history primarily concerns the Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB), the privately run organization that kept a whole nation from starving during WWI. . . Miller discloses the details with a master's touch for synecdoche. . .
Blue Ink Reviews, June 2015

About this edition

• Publisher: Milbrown Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0990689301
• ISBN 13: 9780990689300
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 482