940.3-940.4: History of World War I (2023)

This collection spotlights books, published in the last 10 years, that discuss World War I which lasted from 1914 to 1918. Books featured in this collection will discuss causes and the aftermath of "The Great War" as well as contain histories of significant events and battles.

Updated June 9, 2023
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1

1916 : a global history
Jeffery, Keith
So much of the literature on the First World War centers on the trench warfare of the Western Front, and these were essential battlegrounds. But the war was in fact truly a global conflict, and by focusing on a sequence of events in 1916 across many continents, historian Keith Jeffery's...

2

American midnight : the Great War, a violent peace, and democracy's forgotten crisis
Hochschild, Adam
National Bestseller * One of the year's most acclaimed works of nonfiction A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: New York Times, Washington Post, New Yorker, Chicago Tribune, Kirkus, New York Post, Fast Company From legendary historian Adam Hochschild, a "masterly" (New York Times) reassessment...

3

The confidence men : how two prisoners of war engineered the most remarkable escape in history
Fox, Margalit
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * The Great Escape for the Great War: the astonishing true story of two World War I prisoners who pulled off one of the most ingenious escapes of all time. FINALIST FOR THE EDGAR® AWARD * ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post,<...

4

Dark invasion : 1915 : Germany's secret war and the hunt for the first terrorist cell in America
Blum, Howard.
Combining the pulsating drive of Showtime's Homeland with the fascinating historical detail of such of narrative nonfiction bestsellers as Double Cross and In the Garden of Beasts, Dark Invasion is Howard Blum's gritty, high-energy true-life tale of German espionage and terror on American soil...

5

Dead wake : the last crossing of the Lusitania
Larson, Erik
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the bestselling author and master of narrative nonfiction comes the enthralling story of the sinking of the Lusitania "Both terrifying and enthralling."--Entertainment Weekly"Thrilling, dramatic and powerful."...

6

The deluge : the Great War, America, and the remaking of the global order, 1916-1931
Tooze, J. Adam.
Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize - History Finalist for the Kirkus Prize - Nonfiction A searing and highly original analysis of the First World War and its anguished aftermath In the depths of the Great War, with millions dead and no imaginable...

7

Einstein's war : how relativity triumphed amid the vicious nationalism of World War I
Stanley, Matthew
"Stanley is a storyteller par excellence."--The Washington Post Kirkus Review starred review; Publishers Weekly starred review; Booklist starred review The birth of a world-changing idea in the middle of a bloodbath

8

The embrace of unreason : France, 1914-1940
Brown, Frederick
From acclaimed biographer and cultural historian, author of For the Soul of France ("Masterful history" --Henry Kissinger), Zola ("Magnificent" --The New Yorker), and Flaubert ("Impeccable" --James Wood, cover, The New York Times Book Review)--a brilliant...

9

The escape artists : a band of daredevil pilots and the greatest prison break of the Great War
Bascomb, Neal
"Bascomb has unearthed a remarkable piece of hidden history, and told it perfectly. The story brims with adventure, suspense, daring, and heroism." --David Grann, New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon Neal Bascomb, New York Times best-selling...

10

The fall of the Ottomans : the Great War in the Middle East
Rogan, Eugene L.
The thrilling and definitive history of World War I in the Middle East By 1914 the powers of Europe were sliding inexorably toward war, and they pulled the Middle East along with them into one of the most destructive conflicts in human history. In The Fall of the Ottomans,...

11

The great Halifax explosion : a World War I story of treachery, tragedy, and extraordinary heroism
Bacon, John U.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER The "riveting" (National Post) tick-tock account of the largest manmade explosion in history prior to the atomic bomb, and the equally astonishing tales of survival and heroism that emerged from the ashes "Enthralling. ... Gripping. ... A...

12

The great rescue : American heroes, an iconic ship, and the race to save Europe in WWI
Hernon, Peter
When war broke out in Europe in August 1914, the new German luxury ocean liner SS Vaterland was interned in New York Harbor, where it remained docked for nearly three years--until the United States officially entered the fight to turn the tide of the war. Seized by authorities for...

13

The Hello Girls : America's first women soldiers
Cobbs Hoffman, Elizabeth
This is the story of how America's first women soldiers helped win World War I, earned the vote, and fought the U.S. Army. In 1918, the U.S. Army Signal Corps sent 223 women to France. They were masters of the latest technology: the telephone switchboard. General John Pershing, commander of the...

14

The hundred-year walk : an Armenian odyssey
MacKeen, Dawn Anahid
An epic tale of one man's courage in the face of genocide and his granddaughter's quest to tell his story In the heart of the Ottoman Empire as World War I rages, Stepan Miskjian's world becomes undone. He is separated from his family as they are swept up in...

15

March 1917 : on the brink of war and revolution
Englund, Will
"We are provincials no longer", said Woodrow Wilson on 5 March 1917, at his second inaugural. He spoke on the eve of America's entrance into the First World War, as Russia teetered between autocracy and democracy. Just ten days after Wilson's declaration, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated the throne,...

16

Marked for death : the first war in the air
Hamilton-Paterson, James
A dramatic and fascinating account of aerial combat during World War I, revealing the terrible risks taken by the men who fought and died in the world's first war in the air. Little more than ten years after the first powered flight, aircraft were pressed into service in World...

17

The Oxford illustrated history of the first World War
Strachan, Hew
An illustrated history of Britain since the Roman occupation, which traces its political, social, economic and cultural development.

18

Secret warriors : the spies, scientists and code breakers of World War I
Downing, Taylor
World War I is often viewed as a war fought by armies of millions living and fighting in trenches, aided by brutal machinery that cost the lives of many. But behind all of this an intellectual war was also being fought between engineers, chemists, code-breakers, physicists, doctors, mathematicians,...

19

To hell and back : Europe, 1914-1949
Kershaw, Ian
"Chilling... To Hell and Back should be required reading in every chancellery, every editorial cockpit and every place where peevish Euroskeptics do their thinking.... Kershaw documents each and every 'ism' of his analysis with extraordinary detail and passionate humanism."--...

20

The trigger : hunting the assassin who brought the world to war
Butcher, Tim
On a summer morning in Sarajevo almost a hundred years ago, a teenager took a pistol out of his pocket and fired not just the opening rounds of the First World War but the starting gun for modern history. By killing Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Gavrilo...

21

The unknowns : the untold story of America's unknown soldier and WWI's most decorated heroes who brought him home
O'Donnell, Patrick K.
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is sacred ground at Arlington National Cemetery. Originally constructed in 1921 to hold one of the thousands of unidentified American soldiers lost in World War I, it now also contains unknowns from World War II and the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and receives millions...

22

The unsubstantial air : American fliers in the First World War
Hynes, Samuel
The Unsubstantial Air is the gripping story of the Americans who fought and died in the aerial battles of World War I. Much more than a traditional military history, it is an account of the excitement of becoming a pilot and flying in combat over the Western Front, told through the words...

23

The vanquished : why the First World War failed to end
Gerwarth, Robert
Winner of the Tomlinson Book Prize A Times Literary Supplement Best Book of 2016 An epic, groundbreaking account of the ethnic and state violence that followed the end of World War I--conflicts that would shape the course of the twentieth century.

24

War against war : the American fight for peace, 1914-1918
Kazin, Michael
The untold story of the movement that came close to keeping the United States out of the First World War. This book is about the Americans who tried to stop their nation from fighting in one of history's most destructive wars and then were hounded by the government when they refused to...

25

Wasteland : the Great War and the origins of modern horror
Poole, W. Scott
Historian and Bram Stoker Award Nominee W. Scott Poole traces the confluence of military history, technology, and art that gave us modern horror films and literature. From Nosferatu to Frankenstein's monster, from Fritz Lang to James Whale, the touchstones of horror can all trace...

26

The world remade : America in World War I
Meyer, G. J.
An indispensable, sharply drawn account of America's pivotal-and still controversial-intervention in World War I, enlivened by fresh insights into the key issues, events, and personalities of the period, from the New York Times bestselling author of A World Undone

27

A world undone : the story of the Great War, 1914-1918
Meyer, G. J.

28

World War I : the definitive visual history : from Sarajevo to Versailles
Grant, R. G.
Between 1914 and 1918, a conflict on an epic scale left an indelible mark on the memory of the world - World War I. World War I: The Definitive Visual History takes you from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand to the Treaty of Versailles. Experience some of...

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