14-18: Understanding the Great War [Paperback]

Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau (Author), Annette Becker (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0809046431 | ISBN-13: 978-0809046430 | Publication Date: November 1, 2003

With this brilliantly innovative book, Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau and Annette Becker have shown that the Great War was the matrix on which all subsequent disasters of the twentieth century were formed. Three elements of the conflict, all too often neglected or denied, are identified as those that must be grasped if we are to understand the war: First, what inspired its unprecedented physical brutality, and what were the effects of tolerating such violence? Second, how did citizens of the belligerent states come to be driven by vehement nationalistic and racist impulses? Third, how did the tens of millions bereaved by the war come to terms with the agonizing pain? With its strikingly original interpretative strength and its wealth of compelling documentary evidence drawn from all sides in the conflict, 14-18: Understanding the Great War has quickly established itself as a classic in the history of modern warfare.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Over the last 15 years, French scholars have produced a body of research that has fundamentally altered the history of WWI, though much of the work remains largely unknown in the U.S. The authors, directors of the French Museum of the Great War, draw on much of that work and see the war through three transformative, overlapping lenses: violence, crusade and mourning. In a striking contradiction to current U.S. historians' approaches, the authors assert the necessity of battle history-not as a techno-historical end in itself, but as source material for a richly textured analysis of the interrelated effects of violence on soldiers and civilians alike, culminating in a discussion of the way the confinement of military prisoners and the widespread internment of civilians combined to institutionalize a "concentration-camp phenomenon that would reemerge two decades later in far more sinister contexts." Further, when the combatants began by defining the war in patriotic terms, as a war of national defense, it became a crusade. Patriotism escalated into a perception of the conflict as between civilization and barbarism, a dichotomy accompanied by crude hatreds and reflexive dehumanization of the enemy, fueled by the experiences of military occupation, and by the myths (or what we might now call "urban legends") produced by it. The final consequence, the authors argue persuasively, was the development of full-blown eschatologoical expectations-that the war would really prepare the way for God's dominion on earth. The resulting disillusion opened the way for individual and collective mourning as the bereavements caused by war finally sank in. Disillusion, however, also opened the path to even higher levels of violence to force achieve the frustrated messianic ends. In the final analysis, the authors suggest, the Great War left a dual legacy-grief and totalitarianism.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

It seems impossible to escape the legacy of World War I. The collapse of Communist regimes in eastern and Central Europe certainly removed one odious legacy of that conflict. Yet that collapse triggered a resurgence of the extreme nationalism and interethnic hatreds that were both a cause and a result of the war. Audoin-Rouzeau and Becker have written extensively on the causes, course, and effects of the war. Here they have written a reappraisal of both the nature and the effects of the war that is striking and likely to evoke considerable controversy among both historians and laymen. They begin by examining the sheer and unprecedented violence of the war, during which many of the previous restraints were dropped. They emphatically assert that the responsibility for this violence must be placed on ordinary soldiers as well as on the easy target, the "leaders." They proceed to explore the role of a "crusading" spirit in generating enthusiasm for the war among the populace. The authors reject facile efforts to portray gullible lambs led to slaughter; rather, war enthusiasm seems to have bubbled up from below, and there were strong sentiments on both sides to "exterminate" the enemy. Finally, the phenomenon of mass mourning as a reaction to the scale of death is suggested as a constant strain in European consciousness over the past nine decades. This is an important and provocative work that offers new perspectives on a seminal conflict. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Hill and Wang (November 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809046431
• ISBN-13: 978-0809046430
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #59,376 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #47 in Books > History > Europe > Western
  • #52 in Books > History > Military > World War I

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Limited evidence leads to sweeping conclusions, July 11, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: 14-18: Understanding the Great War (Hardcover)

It took me a while to understand why I was so disappointed and uncomfortable with this book. The subject matter and chapter topics seemed intriguing; the writing style wasn't bad. Then I began to understand that the problem is with the authors' scholarship. In an attempt to reinterpret the war and make it meaningful for a contemporary audience, they used the inexperienced-author-survey style of writing, which takes an anecdote or two and turns this limited information into the basis for broad, sweeping conclusions that are inaccurate, or worse. As an amateur historian who understands the rules of scholarship, I was finding it impossible to suspend disbelief as I read through this series of interrelated but lightweight essays. Some of the information presented is indeed interesting, but the conclusions are not, and overall it does not hold together well as a book.

If you're looking for a recent WWI publication that is informative, well-researched and engaging, get Winston Groom's book, A Storm in Flanders.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Food for Thought, July 13, 2004

By 

Damon K. Jasperson (Overland Park, Kansas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 14-18: Understanding the Great War (Paperback)

This book is a series of essays on various topics related to World War I. It does not claim to be a thorough analysis of the war, but it does point in directions for further thought and research. I found the book to be quite fascinating. For example, there is a chapter about forced labor behind the front lines that was new material to me. Also, there is quite a bit about how the war was remembered and memorialized that is very intriguing. A major thesis of the book is that Paul Fussell's idea about a big cultural disconnect resulting from the Great War is wrong. The authors endeavor to show that, other than some avant-garde artists, most people continued to understand the world in traditional terms. Overall, a very stimulating book.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Informative and Readable, March 8, 2009

By 

dizzy dean (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 14-18: Understanding the Great War (Paperback)

I enjoyed this work--a collection of essays which the authors state are portions of longer works in progress. Becker and Audoin-Rouzeau are directors of the WWI museum in France located near the Somme battlefield. Their intent is to explore areas that are often neglected in the big meta-narratives. I found the essays on the war fervor, eschatology and historicizing grief to be the best. As this is cultural history, perhaps it isn't quite as nuts and bolts as another reviewer would have liked, but I found the ideas presented to be certainly plausible. A nice complement to Modris Ekstein's The Rites of Spring.