Fans pick 100 books like Contesting the Origins of the First World War

The book provides a fresh look at the pivotal World War II sea battle, generally considered the turning point of the Pacific War. The authors conducted extensive research on both the American and Japanese sides to provide a comprehensive account of the battle. This book is highly readable and enjoyable.

Conventional histories blame Germany for starting the First World War by “turning a Balkan Quarrel into a European war.” McMeekin shows both Germany and Austria-Hungary wanted a quick, isolated Austrian-Serbian war. It was Russia that wanted a general European war in order to seize Constantinople and the Bosporus Straits and give Russia access to the Mediterranean. Therefore, the Russians wanted France and Great Britain to tie down Germany, while Russia crushed the Austrians and seized the Balkans and the Bosphorous. And the Russians knew about the Serb plot to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand in advance. McMeeken’s archival research in proving his case is impressive.

Conventional histories give the French a free pass concerning the causes of World War I: the French leadership is commonly described as being literally out-of-touch (on a battleship coming back to France). Schmidt’s brilliant archival research shows that the French were fully aware that the Austrians were going to issue an ultimatum to the Serbs and encouraged the Russians to support a Serb refusal and a Russian military attack on Austria. (My addendum: the French plan is a mirror image of the Russian plan – the French would tie down the Germans in the West and the Russians hordes would overwhelm the Germans in the East.)

Zinn uses Japanese sources and modern Operations Research techniques to produce a revisionist account of the attack. The Japanese planning was deeply flawed and the execution of the attack chaotic. The Japanese escaped disaster only because American defensive measures were abysmal. The Japanese attack wasn’t “brilliant,” is commonly maintained – it was dumb luck. Zinn also demolishes numerous hoary myths, for example, that the Japanese could/should have destroyed the American fuel storage tanks. Zinn’s attention to military detail produces a fundamentally new appreciation of the Pearl Harbor attack.

This is the kind of book that I wish I had written. In a series of individual essays, Brian Bond considers a variety of memoirs written by British participants of the Great War, detailing the author’s life and assessing the themes of their work. Some of the memoirs are familiar, such as Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves, whereas others are long forgotten. The result is a fascinating book that reveals the sheer diversity of wartime experience and how the authors struggled to cope with it.

One of the most prolific thriller writers of the early 20th century, Edgar Wallace wasn't alone in writing speculative fiction employing new technology that reflected concerns over the First World War. He wasn't alone in fearing biological weapons as in the Green Rust in which Germany planned to use to release germs that would wipe out much of earth's wheat, giving Germany domination after their surrender at the end of the Great War.

The biological weapon in the Green Rust wasn't Wallace's first use of a concept that would be employed countless times ever since; his 1913 The Fourth Plague had an Italian gang called the Red Hand blackmailing England with their own biological threat much in the spirit of what Blofeld and his Spectre would try out in the thrillers of Ian Fleming.

Later, Wallace’s Little Green Man and Other Stories also anticipated the technology of the future, including… show more.

This may be the book that started it all. Mosse has many books that try to explain the rise of the Nazis in Germany who Mosse and his parents fled in the 1930s. Here Mosse describes how Nazis used the war dead from the First World War in an explicit attempt to harness the nationalism of Germans to support Nazi politics. Winter disagrees with Mosse and developed arguments that are probably more accepted by historians today but, for me, that doesn’t take away from the power of Mosse’s argument. Even though I don’t always agree with Mosse’s analysis, I can’t help but be engrossed by his writing, his passion, and his ability to describe how the war dead could be used as political weapons. 

I was riveted by this revisionist history of how America got into World War I and changed American society and politics. He shows how much of American collective memory about why WWI was fought, and the perception of Germany in America was fashioned, to a large extent, by British propaganda. He also shows why Germany had no choice but to engage in unrestricted submarine warfare, which eventually brought the United States into the war.

Had the British modified the naval blockade on Germany, which starved the German population in a horrific manner, the United States might never have become involved. But Great Britain was determined to make sure Germany would never again pose a threat to its colonial overseas empire. President Wilson at first understood that American neutrality was the means by which he could have brokered peace, but British and French recalcitrance, and eventually the deaths of relatively few… show more.

A small and beautiful story of three young soldier casualties who lie in a German hospital ward as the Great War grinds its way to an end. They've survived the bullet wounds to their throats and faces that have reduced each of their voices to a whispering whistle. But there is little left of their lives beyond survival, despite the efforts of their dedicated surgeon and their devotion to each other. A novella, based on the real-life experiences of the author, his comrades, and the English PoW they met in the Whistlers Room.

Boff’s book, impressively researched with extensive use of rare primary sources, and winner of two impressive British book awards, examines the war life and times of Bavarian Crown Prince Rupprecht. In high command on the Western Front for the entire war, Rupprecht remained in position to witness the limitations of Prussian generalship, especially in 1914 and 1918; the growing preponderance of allied strength after U.S. entry in 1917; and divisive home front politics throughout Germany. He lost not only the war, but also a son, as well as his throne, which was swept away in the revolutionary upheaval at the war’s end.