Capital Cities at War: Paris, London, Berlin 1914–1919 (Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare, Series Number 2) - Softcover

Winter, Jay; Robert, Jean-Louis

Softcover

ISBN 10: 052166814X ISBN 13: 9780521668149

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1999

Synopsis

This ambitious volume marks a huge step in our understanding of the social history of the Great War. The authors have compiled a vast array of data and have drawn an original and coherent portrait of European cities at war. Contributors from several fields bring an interdisciplinary approach to the book, and represent the best of recent scholarship. One of the few truly comparative works on the Great War, this volume will transform social studies of the conflict and is likely to become a model for research.

About this title

Review:

"The title of this impressive volume alone announces something special, but it does not prepare the reader for what is to come--what must surely be the most powerful, distinguished and innovative work of recent social history to be published in the last twenty years." Reviews in History

"What Jay Winter and Jean-Louis Robert have attempted to do in assembling this remarkable collection of scholarly work is to suggest better methodologies for comparing urban experiences but also, and more ambitiously, for comparing the national war efforts of France, the United Kingdom and Germany....In terms of providing a detailed and well-researched comparison of the experiences of the three capital cities, the work is a stunning success....This is a weighty tome in every sense and it will certainly stimulate argument and excite some controversy about both its methods and its conclusions. It makes a very valuable contribution to existing debates, but also suggests new approaches and areas for study. We may await its companion volume with interest." Alan Sharp, H-France Review of Books

"A remarkable book and a major one, Capital Cities at War provides much to challenge received wisdom concerning the social history of World War I, and it provides the data necessary to advance inquiries in new directions." The Journal of Military History

"It is a distinctly metropolitan perspective on mobility and possibility and debasement in the war years that this splendid study brings into focus." Canadian Journal of History

"Jay Winter, perhaps the most prolific scholarly writer in English working today in the First World War, has, with Jean-Louis Robert and others, produced a dense, complex, and fascinating comparative portrait of three of Europe's capital cities as they each coped with the crisis of war." Gerald Herman, H-Net Reviews

"Winter, Robert, and their collaborators are to be congratulated for the intellectual rigor and the sharp focus of this volume. This is a model of what a collaborative historical enterprise should be." American Historical Review

"The overall impact of Capital Cities at War: Paris, London, Berlin 1914-1919 is impressive, and the companion volume is eagerly anticipated....It is a major contribution to the field of war and social development....The book is impressively written....Capital Cities at War...should be an indispensible source for urban, social and military historians for years to come." Urban History Review

"...an impressive book...the contributors throughtout offer readers precise, concrete data in order to underline the important `disctinction between `experience' and `imagined' communities'(5)." Robert J. Bezucha, International Labor & Working-Class History

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 052166814X
• ISBN 13: 9780521668149
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 644