The First World War: A Concise Global History (Exploring World History) [Hardcover]

William Kelleher Storey (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0742541452 | ISBN-13: 978-0742541450 | Publication Date: October 15, 2009

In a compact but comprehensive and clear narrative, this book explores the First World War from a genuinely global perspective. Putting a human face on the war, William Kelleher Storey takes into account individual decisions and experiences as well as environmental and technological factors such as food, geography, manpower, and weapons.

He argues that the war profoundly changed the ways in which people imagined the landscape around them and thought about technology and the environment. Before the war, Europe and its colonies generally regarded industrial technology as an instrument of modernity; the landscape existed to be conquered, divided, and ruled. During and after the war, the costs of conquest became much higher, raising significant doubts about the value of progress. Soldiers experienced profound personal degradation, physical injuries, and mental collapse in the midst of nightmarish, technologically induced environmental conditions, which they vividly remembered when they formed new identities in the postwar world. Although people did not abandon thoughts of technological advance, after the war they had a keener sense of modernity's costs. Without neglecting traditional themes, Storey's deft interweaving of the role of environment and technology enriches our understanding of the social, political, and military history of the war, not only in Europe, but throughout the world.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

This narrative history of the Great War will better inform general readers concerning the causes and effects of the conflict, which continues to shape the destinies of millions of people across the world. History professor Storey’s account follows the conventional path, from the tragic miscalculations preceding the outbreak of fighting to the horrors of stalemate and trench warfare to the fatally flawed “peace” conference in Paris in 1919. This is, by definition, not a comprehensive history, but Storey offers some fresh perspectives that make this survey interesting and useful. Although historians often view the conflict as a “European civil war,” Storey convincingly asserts that, considering the long-term effects, it truly was a world war, one in which the faith of many Western nations in concepts such as nationalism and technological progress was badly shaken. In areas ruled by Europeans in Asia and Africa, the war stimulated an upsurge in national aspirations for independence. Storey also shows how the war fundamentally altered social relations in participating nations, with consequences for demography, gender roles, and politics. This is a well-written, easily digestible examination of a seminal conflict. --Jay Freeman

Review

Hurrah for William Storey. Capitalizing on the insights of environmental and technological history, he has retold the story of World War I in a fresh and provocative way. By highlighting the role of nature and machines in that most awful conflict, his story helps us understand wars of today as well as those of the past. (Edmund Russell )

William Storey's lucid new account of the First World War emphasizes the common struggle of all combatants against the improved sciences of killing on one side and the unyielding demands of geography and environment on the other. Refined aircraft, rain and rats, malnutrition, poignant flickers of imagination in protest: here is the shared war that united allies and foes. (Maier, Charles )

The focus of this efficient study is distinct from the usual perspective. Storey looks at the environmental and technological factors that played a globally significant role in the unfolding of World War I. He contends that the war fundamentally changed the ways in which people took in their surroundings and the manner in which we relate to machines. Before the war, technology, from the viewpoint of industry, was part of the modern age—there to be harnessed. But once technology advanced the tools of war, the results of conquest become greater than anyone had experienced or imagined. A good choice for college students. (Library Journal )

This narrative history of the Great War will better inform general readers concerning the causes and effects of the conflict, which continues to shape the destinies of millions of people across the world. . . . Storey offers some fresh perspectives that make this survey interesting and useful. . . . This is a well-written, easily digestible examination of a seminal conflict. (Booklist )

In addition to providing a clear and insightful retelling of a familiar story, this 'concise global history' emphasizes the role of the environment and of new and old technologies. . . . The most important global dimension of the 1914-1918 war was its consequences. There are sections specifically about the environment and technologies, and Storey weaves references to them throughout his narrative. . . . Recommended. (Choice )

William Storey's The First World War provides a succinct introduction to the history and significance of the Great War. It offers original perspectives on aspects of the war that are passed over too briefly in other books, such as the experiences of common soldiers and of women and the contribution of Africans to the war. It will prove valuable for undergraduate courses in twentieth-century world and European history. (Daniel R. Headrick )

The book is particularly valuable for Storey's analysis of the generally overlooked environmental factors that affected operations, his discussion of the role of non-Europeans in the struggle, and his look at long-term global impact of the war, in terms of its social, cultural, and political effects, not only on the belligerents but also on colonial peoples world wide. This is an useful work for anyone interested in the First World War, and a particularly valuable one for those lacking much prior knowledge of the conflict, and as a recommended reading in a modern history course. (The Nymas Review )

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (October 15, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0742541452
• ISBN-13: 978-0742541450
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,615,617 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

William Kelleher Storey is Professor of History and Chair of the History Department at Millsaps College, where he has taught since 1999. Storey teaches classes about African History, World History, and the British Empire.

Storey was born in New York City in 1965 and grew up on Long Island. He graduated from Phillips Academy, Andover, in 1983 and went on to earn his bachelor's degree in history at Harvard University in 1987. He completed his master's degree in history in 1990 at the Johns Hopkins University, where he received his doctorate in 1993. After finishing his formal studies in history, Bill received further training during two postdoctoral fellowships. In 1994-5 he was an NSF Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University. From 1995 to 1997 he was a Preceptor in Expository Writing at Harvard University.

Professor Storey has a special interest in the history of environmental change, science, and technology. He is the author of four books. Two of them are based on research about environmental and technological aspects of imperialism: Guns, Race, and Power in Colonial South Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2008) and Science and Power in Colonial Mauritius (University of Rochester Press, 1997). He is also the author of Writing History: A Guide for Students (Oxford University Press, 1999; 2nd ed. 2003; 3rd ed. 2009), which draws on his undergraduate teaching about historical writing. His most recent book, The First World War: A Concise Global History (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009) is based on a class that he teaches in the Core Curriculum at Millsaps. Storey is currently in the early stages of writing a biography of Cecil Rhodes from an environmental and technological perspective.

Storey has been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship (1992), plus grants from the American Historical Association (1993); the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (1997); the Mellon Foundation (2005); and the National Endowment for the Humanities (2004). The Society for the History of Technology has awarded him the Abbot Payson Usher Prize for the year's best journal article (2005) and the Sidney M. Edelstein Prize for the year's best book (2009). He has also received the Outstanding Young Faculty Award from Millsaps College (2003) and a Teaching Award from the Mississippi Humanities Council (2006).

Customer Reviews

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5.0 out of 5 stars The First World War: A Concise Global History, January 9, 2012

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This review is from: The First World War: A Concise Global History (Exploring World History) (Paperback)

I have great interest in WWII, so I was looking for a short book on WW I to round out my understanding of what the first great war was about. This book was short, concise, full of fundamental imformation about the factors leading to the war, what happened in the war, etc. Was a pleasure to read. The author has really made this a pleasurable quick review of this important war.