The First World War in 100 Objects

A powerful visual and narrative treatment of the "war to end all wars".

The First World War in 100 Objects draws on the most interesting 100 items that describe the causes, progress and outcome of the First World War. From weapons that created carnage to affectionate letters home, these 100 objects are as extraordinary in their diversity and storytelling power as they are devastating in their poignancy. This is the stuff of war at its most horrible.

Here are a few of these objects:

• military significance -- a Vickers machine gun
• iconic power -- John Singer Sargent's painting, Gassed
• personal sentiment -- a German button given to a British Tommy in the Christmas Truce of 1914
• political importance -- President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points.

These and the other 96 objects are displayed in brief chapters describing the associated people and events and illustrated with full color. The book is carefully organized into distinctive periods of the war and includes these examples:

• Imperialism, Nationalism and the Road to War (pre-1914): King George's Imperial Crown; Prussian Pickelhaube helmet; map showing Europe's alliances and animosities
• The Shock of the New (1914): "Your Country Needs You" recruitment poster; German jackboots; "Ole Bill," a London double-decker bus used to ferry soldiers to Ypres
• Theaters of War (1915 to 1916): Australian Battalion flag; Lusitania survivor's camisole; airdrop message streamer
• Mud and Blood (1916 to 1917): Postcard from the Eastern Front; trench club; discipline and desertion charge sheet
• From Near-Defeat to Victory (1918): British Mark V tank; "Hang the Kaiser" election sign; Toby jug
• A New European Landscape (from 1919): Gun used by German prisoners to shoot seagulls; sketch of the Whitehall Cenotaph; the old Kaiser crown.

A History of the First World War in 100 Objects is a distinctive and original presentation of the military and human stories of this cataclysmic war that did indeed change the world.

Colonel John Hughes-Wilson, a highly respected First World War historian, is president of the International Guild of Battlefield Guides and a commentator on intelligence and military subjects. He has been a frequent broadcaster on BBC television and radio.

Nigel Steel has been the UK's Imperial War Museum's principal historian since 1999. He is also an honorary research fellow at the University of Birmingham's Centre for War Studies.