Currently a full professor at Loyola University, he entered college at 16, studying chemistry, economics, and literature. He did graduate work in German, Russian, and Philosophy, held a double fellowship in music and literature, and wrote his dissertation on the relationship between historiography and epic poetry. In 2001, his 10th book, The Myth of the Great War was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in history.
I wrote
The Myth of the Great War: A New Military History of World War I
A scathing and detailed analysis of the Ango-French invasion of Greece and the military, political, and strategic debacle that ensured as they attempted to open a third front against the Central Powers. If you’ve ever wondered why this isn’t much talked about, or even mentioned, Abbott explains it.
From the preface: "The late convulsions in Greece and Turkey, and the consequent revival of all the mis-statements which, during the War, flowed from ignorance or malice, render the publication of this book particularly opportune. Mr. Abbott deals with his subject in all its aspects, and presents for the first time to the British public a complete and coherent view of the complicated circumstances that made Greece, during the War, the battle-ground of rival interests and intrigues, from which have grown the present troubles. In this book we get a clear account of the little-understood relations between the Greek and…
Even though Italy was one of the “victors,” its participation on the allied side was the cause of the government’s collapse, and the rise Mussolini and the fascisti, with all the calamities that followed. This book provides a truly horrifying explanation of why that was so.
In May 1915, Italy declared war on the Habsburg Empire. Nearly 750,000 Italian troops were killed in savage, hopeless fighting on the stony hills north of Trieste and in the snows of the Dolomites. To maintain discipline, General Luigi Cadorna restored the Roman practice of decimation, executing random members of units that retreated or rebelled. With elegance and pathos, historian Mark Thompson relates the saga of the Italian front, the nationalist frenzy and political intrigues that preceded the conflict, and the towering personalities of the statesmen, generals, and writers drawn into the heart of the chaos. A work of epic…
The best account of the futile Allied attempts to keep Russia in the war. Largely ignored, mainly because it was politically embarrassing and. Still worse, through no fauly of the army, it was militarily unsucessful. But the intervention left lasting scars, and consequences were fatal for the remainder of the century.
In the aftermath of the First World War, the United States sent 13,000 troops into the Soviet Union in support of the Tsarist White Russian Army, in an attempt to crush the Bolshevik government that had assumed power in the Russian Revolution. Written by three American doughboys who fought in Russia, this is a firsthand account of the only time in history that American troops directly fought Red Army troops.
Although much of the book is concerned with earlier wars, it is a necessary preface to understanding not only why the Habsburg armies were forced to fight all over Central Europe, and as the final sections of the book makes clear, why they they fought on to the bitter end.
The army was perhaps the most important single institution in the multinational empire of the Hapsburgs. The Austro-Hungarian dynasty survived through the military power it could command, and the rise and fall of the fortress of the Hapsburgs were mirrored accurately in the state of its military establishment. It was in the army alone, with its common language, ideals, and loyalty, that the concept of a great empire headed by an emperor was even partially translated into reality. But in an age of nationalism, the army alone could not save the multinational state. Tradition and circumstance cast it into the…
Not only does Stone demolish the many false ideas held about this part of the war, but he provides us with insights that allow us to understand the important connections among the three fronts of the war that impacted decisions in Paris and London—and vice versa.
Based on previously unused French and German sources, this challenging and controversial new analysis of the war on the Western front from 1914 to 1918 reveals how and why the Germans won the major battles with one-half to one-third fewer casualties than the Allies, and how American troops in 1918 saved the Allies from defeat and a negotiated peace with the Germans.
In Svetlana's country, it’s a felony to break a mirror. Mirrors are conduits of the Voice, the deity worshiped by all who follow Light. The Voice protects humans of MotherLand from the dangers that beset them on all sides: an invading army of wolf-headed men on their borders and the infectious, ever-evolving, zombie-like Enemy that plagues them at home. When Svetlana meets Andrei, a traumatized and amnesiac soldier from another war, she embarks on a harrowing journey of adventure and self-discovery that leads her to question everything she was taught to…
A voice through Svetlana's mirror guides her beloved MotherLand from behind its' electric tower. The war with Wulfstan is not going as well as Sveta and her parents hope, but Sveta trusts the Voice. When her best friend Tattie goes missing, and Sveta saves Andrei, a soldier in summer uniform in the dead of winter, it takes Sveta through a crucible of Light, doubt, and back to the altar of true belief. Girl of Light unravels Sveta's beloved MotherLand in a war-torn adventure through monsters, missing eyes and broken mirrors.
