10 books like Paul Nash

This book covers the drama and upheaval of the years leading up to the war to end all wars, and how five young British artist’s lives were changed utterly by their experiences, with all the energy of a great historical novel. All artists hope to find a powerful subject to drive their work, but this generation had to somehow express the madness and horror they found in those fields of Europe. A later generation would learn from these expressionists, futurists and vorticists and conjure international careers out of those lessons, but this very English group, during this century defining decade, did the heavy lifting.

Key paintings from Nash’s restless career, each with an accompanying essay offering insight into the real places and events that Nash samples and folds into his psychological landscapes. We are constantly aware of the mind behind the brush, using the places he loves to explore his inner anxieties and his desire for solace.

More than any other book, this volume of letters between friends, and the unguarded insight they allow, gave me a sense of the man, his rhythms of speech, his manner of expression and his character. Career details and everyday mundanities mix with deeper concerns and the kind of excavation of ideas only really close and respectful friends can express.

A thoroughly researched visual study of two brothers, close and highly imaginative playmates as children, but then gradually divergent adults as they came to terms with their war experiences. John had a tougher war, yet seems to have been able to leave the horror behind as he embarked on a brighter, more decorative illustrative style. Paul would be haunted his entire life by shadows of death and depression, but would become one of this country's most important and powerful artists.

Paschall brings to this book his insightful experience of army organizations and war as an infantry officer and veteran of the Vietnam conflagration. Readers can follow in detail the allied offensives of 1917, Germany’s last gasp effort to win on the Western Front in 1918 after Russia’s collapse in the east, and the retreat and breakdown of the once impressive German army in the waning months of the war.  

This brilliant book pulls together many strands of the war, as presented through the lens of attrition. In his sweeping narrative, Philpott focuses on the land war – how it was fought and why, and how it evolved over 4 years – but War of Attrition also examines the politics and diplomacy of war, and the war at sea, in the air, and at home. Pound for pound, the best book yet written on the war-fighting years.

Published almost sixty years ago, this compelling study of four senior commanders who served (mostly) on the Western Front remains as fresh as when it was first written. Barnett’s prose is exquisite, bringing us directly into the world of Helmuth von Moltke, John Jellicoe, Philippé Pétain, and Erich Ludendorff, telling us how they coped (or not) with the enormous stresses and strains they encountered as ‘supreme commanders’. It is a stunning portrait of men (and their command systems) at war. 

The late historian, Thomas Fleming, was a friend. It was an article he wrote for American Heritage magazine in 1968, “Two Argonnes,” about his father, a lieutenant in the 78th Division, that inspired me to write my first World War I book centered on my great uncle as the main character.

Thomas authored 19 books, The Illusion of Victory, is his last book, and he paints a different picture of America’s role in the war, showing how President Wilson and our country were “duped” by Great Britain and France to enter the war, thinking the war was almost won. He not only writes about the Western Front but goes into detail about the home front. After reading his book, you’ll get a different perspective on World War I.

In 2020, to honor one of our most imminent historians, Military History Quarterly magazine inaugurated the annual Thomas Fleming Award for… show more.

Friedr and Wim is a novel that I can highly recommend and one of those gems you find outside of the mainstream.

The story moves from the trenches of World War One to a Germany in the 1920s that is in turmoil: politically, economically, and socially. The author gives the reader a different perspective to the one we might be used to in relation to the time period, by following the lives of two young German men as they move through arguably the most traumatic period in world history.

The author creates a story that is historically accurate, but rich in emotion and drama, while at the same time raising many questions for the reader.

Volunteering to join the British Army as I did and consequently serving with The Parachute Regiment, it would have been very easy as a young man to be wrapped up in the reputation, tradition, glory, and ceremony of that unit and to forget what duties you might be called upon to perform. Similar in fact to the character of Paul Baumer, the young idealistic German soldier, full of patriotism and eager to fight the foe in the trenches of WW1. The reality is horrifyingly different, as superbly described by the author from his own harrowing experiences on the Western Front. Paul quickly realises that the nationalism he has been sold is quite false. He is constantly surrounded by hunger, sickness, fear, and death, and that he and his young comrades are already either ‘old or dead.’ To make matters worse his return home on leave is emotionally destructive as nobody… show more.