Horne, Charles F. (Editor in Chief) and
Walter F. Austin (Directing Editor),
SOURCE RECORDS OF THE GREAT WAR..
Complete in seven volumes, with four supplementary volumes. American Legion Edition.
Joffre, von Ludendorff, Foch & Wilhelm.
THE TWO BATTLES OF THE
MARNE.
Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, 1927., VG. First Edition.
No DJ. Front cover starting to loosen. Lower corner of front
board slightly frayed & bumped. Otherwise a clean, sound copy
with very little wear. Lettering bright on front & on spine.
Accounts on the two battles of the Marne River, 1914 & 1918,
by the two French leaders, Marshal Joffre & Marshal Foch, and
the two German leaders General von Ludendorff and Crown Prince
Wilhelm. 229 pp.
$45.00
Keegan, John,
THE FIRST WORLD WAR..
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket. (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999).
Maps on endpages, photographs, notes, bibliography, index, 475 pages.
~~~ The First World War created the modern world. A conflict of unprecedented ferocity, it abruptly ended the
relative peace and prosperity of the Victorian era, unleashing such demons of the twentieth century as mechanized
warfare and mass death. Probing the mystery of how a civilization at the height of its achievement could have
propelled itself into such a ruinous conflict, Keegan takes us behind the scenes of the negotiations among Europe's
crowned heads (all of them related to one another by blood) and ministers, and their doomed efforts to defuse the
crisis. He reveals how, by an astonishing failure of diplomacy and communication, a bilateral dispute grew to engulf
an entire continent. But the heart of Keegan's superb narrative is, of course, his analysis of the military conflict.
~~~ FROM THE CRITICS (Chris Barsanti): "Keegan, the best popular military historian of our time, has
chronicled the four-year cataclysm of World War I with his customary mixture of incisive analysis and compassionate
commentary. Sometimes it’s all too easy to forget the apocalyptic forces WWI unleashed upon the world. The patina of
Europe’s civilized aristocracy was swept away by the endless killing, paving the way for the more efficient barbarism
and nationalist psychoses of World War II. This is Keegan’s theme, and while not a revolutionary one, it is
convincingly delivered. He dismisses many revisionist studies of the war that would have one believe 'if only' this or
that had happened, the war would never have been fought. As in his other work, Keegan’s ability to clearly portray the
plight of the individual soldier is what carries the book. Through all the accounts of strategies and battles, he never
lets us forget these are people he is writing about. He acknowledges that in WWI, unlike other wars he has written on,
heroism is not remembered and only graveyards remain: '...no brave trumpets sound in memory for the drab millions who
plodded to death on the featureless plains of Picardy and Poland; no litanies are sung for the leaders who coaxed them
to slaughter.'
$35.00
MacDonald, Lyn,
1915, THE DEATH OF INNOCENCE..
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket, (NY: Henry Holt & Company, 1993).
Photographs, maps, page-end notes, bibliography, index, 625 pages.
~~~ By Christmas 1914, the wild wave of enthusiasm that had sent men flocking to join up a few months earlier began to tail off, and though the original British Expeditionary Force had suffered 90 percent casualties, most people, particularly the soldiers themselves, still believed that 1915 would see the breaking of the deadlock. But their hopes were shattered on the bloody battlefields of Neuve Chapelle, Ypres, Loos, and far away on the shores of Gallipoli.
Lyn Macdonald's story of 1915 is stark, brutal, frank, sometimes painfully funny, always human. Never before has any
writer collected so many firsthand accounts of the experiences of ordinary soldiers, through diaries, letters, and
interviews with survivors--and it is the dogged heroism and sardonic humor of the soldiers that shine through the
pages of this epic narrative. 1915 is a uniquely compelling blend of military history and poignant memories of the
fighters who survived the ordeal.
~~~ From Publishers Weekly: "Based on letters, journals and memoirs, this fifth volume of Macdonald's
chronicle of the Great War as British soldiers experienced it covers the battles of Neuve Chapelle and Loos, the second
battle of Ypres and the Gallipoli campaign. The author provides a detailed look at the unique trench culture of the
British 1st Army and analyzes `lessons learned,' such as the proper deployment of massed artillery and infantry
reserves during that bloody year. Her assessment of Allied strategy and tactics is unparalleled in clarity. Her
statistics further dramatize the loss of life on the Western Front in 1915 (Macdonald regards Gallipoli as an extension
of the Western Front): Of the 19,500 square miles of German-occupied territory fought over, only eight were recovered --
an average of 200,000 casualties per mile. Macdonald's vividly rendered history evokes pity and awe at the slaughter.
By Christmas 1915, she notes, there was still some hope of ending the conflict quickly, but it was no longer the hope
of innocent optimism.
~~~ From Library Journal: "Macdonald presents a history of the second year of the Great War, focusing
almost entirely on the impressions and experiences of common soldiers gathered from interviews over the last 20 years
as well as from letters, journals, and memoirs. The author has chosen not to analyze Loos, Ypres, Neuve Chappelle, and
the introduction of gas warfare in detail but rather to set the scene and let the desperate, patriotic, idealistic
soldiers tell in their own words how those qualities were expunged and the desire merely to survive left in their
place. The book is not a replacement for a general history, but Macdonald's considerable skill in weaving her narrative
makes this an excellent addition to the literature.
~~~ Hardcover OUT OF PRINT. Paperback currently in print at $25.
$45.00
Michelin & Cie.,
LILLE, BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR.
Michelin
& Cie. Clermont-Ferrand, Michelin Illustrated Guides to the
Battlefields, 1919., VG. First Edition. Stiff card covers.
Illustrated by 100+ B/W photographs & maps. Period
advertisements. 63 pp. $35.00.
$35.00
Prior, Robin and
Trevor Wilson (General Editor: John Keegan),
THE FIRST WORLD WAR (Cassel's History of Warfare Series)..
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket, 8x11.
Cassell & Co., 2000. Illustrated throughout, 28 color maps, chronology, biographies, suggested further readings, index, 224 pages. "World War I created the modern world. By ushering in modern techniques of warfare and redrawing the boundaries of Europe, the war forever changed how wars would be fought and how politics would be conducted. In this concise and authoritative history packed with photographs and specially commissioned battle maps, historians Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson vividly bring back to life this worldwide conflict, its horrific toll, and its significant consequences." British import. OUT OF PRINT.
$45.00
Buchan, John.
THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME.
Grosset & Dunlap,
1917.
VG. A clean, tight copy with pictorial cover. 34 full- &
half-page photographs, 33 maps, showing trenches and natural
features, roads, towns, railroads, etc.~ many of them
fold-out. Two appendices: "Sir Doublas Haig's Second
Dispatch" and "Experiences of the IV German Corps in the
Battle of the Somme During July, 1916: General Sixt von
Armin's Report". 264 pp. $40.00
$40.00
McCarthy, Chris,
THE SOMME: THE DAY-BY-DAY ACCOUNT.
Greenwich Editions., 1996. NEW copy. Hardcover. Glossy illustrated
boards issued without dust jacket. Glossy paper throughout. 9x11.
Profusely illustrated with maps and photographs. Appendices,
bibliography, index, 176 pages.
~~~ Originally published at $29.95,
now
OUT OF PRINT.
$30.00
Strachan, Hew.
THE FIRST WORLD WAR.
Viking, 2004. First American Edition. Hardcover with dust jacket. In new condition except for black remainder dot on bottom edge of book. Maps, numerous photographs distributed
throughout text (including many never-before published & 24 color plates), notes, index, 364 pages. "Ninety years have passed since the outbreak of the First World War, yet as military historian Hew Strachan argues in this brilliant and authoritative new book, the legacy of the "war to end all wars" is with us still. A truly global conflict from the start, the war and many of its most decisive battles were fought in or directly affected the Balkans, Africa, and the Ottoman Empire. Even more than the Second World War, the First World War continues to shape the politics and international relations of our world, especially in hot spots such as the Middle East and the Balkans. Strachan has done a masterful job of reexamining the causes, the
major campaigns, and the consequences of the First World War, compressing a lifetime of knowledge into a single definitive volume. Written in crisp, compelling prose and enlivened with vivid photographs, many of which have never appeared in print before, and detailed maps, The First World War re-creates this world-altering conflict both on and off the battlefield: the clash of ideologies between the colonial powers at the center of the war, the social and economic unrest that swept Europe both before and after, the military strategies employed with stunning success and tragic failure in the various theaters of war, the terms of peace and why it did not last. Drawing on material culled from many countries, Strachan offers a fresh, clear-sighted perspective on how the war not only redrew the map of the world but also set in motion the most dangerous conflicts of today. Deeply learned and powerfully written, The First World War will stand as a landmark of contemporary history. " ~~~ From Publishers Weekly:
"One of the leading historians of WWI offers this superior one-volume version of his massive projected three-volume work, the first volume of which, To Arms, clocked in at 1250-plus pages last year. Strachan strenuously avoids the traditional focus on the Western Front (and the British) and the conventional assumptions of generals' stupidity and soldiers' valor. The war as he sees it was a race among generals on all sides to create new weapons and tactics faster than their opponents, a race that the Triple Entente won. It was also a race among soldiers to fight with these new weapons and tactics instead of raw courage and numbers wherever possible. Yet Russia and the Dual Monarchy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire were totally unfit for a large modern war (one reason the czar and his empire fell in 1917) and were a source of fatal weakness to Germany's alliance even before Italy changed sides. The political background (including the rising consciousness of colonial nationalities conscripted for the war), social consequences and diplomatic finagling all face an equal amount of revision, leaving the book organized more thematically than chronologically. Readers already familiar with the sequence of events in strict order will benefit most. But all readers will eventually be gripped, and even the most seasoned ones will praise the insights and the original choice of illustrations. This is likely to be the most indispensable one-volume work on the subject since John Keegan's First World War, and will draw serious readers to the larger work."
$27.00
Strachan, Hew (ed).
THE OXFORD ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF WORLD WAR I.
NEW copy. Hardcover with dust jacket. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998) Photographs and color
plates throughout, bibliography, section of maps, illustration sources, index, 356 pages.
~~~ ~World War I has shaped
the history of the 20th century. It was the first
conflict in which airplanes, submarines, and tanks
played a significant role, the first in which casualties
on the battlefield outnumbered those from disease. It
precipitated the collapse of the empires of
Austria-Hungary and Turkey, and it promoted revolution
in that of Russia. The USA's entry into the war and the
part it played in the peace settlement signaled the
arrival on the world stage of a new great power. The
victors at Versailles took nationalism as one of their
guiding principles, they also aimed at instituting their
vision of liberalism and even democracy; the political
consequences are still being played out. ~~~ In this
extensively illustrated book, an international team of
experts explores the war in all its different aspects.
From its causes to its consequences, from the strategy
of the politicians to the tactics of the generals, the
course of the war is charted and its political and human
consequences assessed. Chapters on economic mobilization, the impact on women, the role of propaganda, and the rise of socialism, establish the wider social context of fighting which took place at sea and in the air and which ranged on land from the Flanders trenches to the Balkan moountains and the deserts of the Middle East.
~~~ While the war was fought on many fronts and in many different ways, the unifying experience of participants was that of the trenches. The legacy of 'the war to end wars' ~ in poetry and prose, in collective memory and political culture - is with us still, eighty years after that first Armistice Day.
~~~ Twenty-three contributors, including Ulrich Trumpener, Paul G.
Halpern, Hew Strachen, Robin Pryor, J.M. Winter, Modris Eksteins, Trevor Wilson,
Tim Travers, and others.
~~~ Paperback edition currrently in print at $24.95; hardcover OUT OF PRINT.
$35.00
Terraine, John.
TO WIN A WAR: 1918, THE YEAR OF VICTORY..
Doubleday, 1981., VG/VG, First Edition. DJ in mylar protector.
Original "14.95" price still intact on DJ. A nice clean copy with
no apparent flaws. Maps, photographs, chapter-end notes,
bibliography, appendices, index, 268 pp. $35.00
$35.00
Thomas, Capt. Shipley,
THE HISTORY OF THE A.E.F.
Battery Press Reprint of 1920 Edition, in Association with the
Sergeant York Patriotic Foundation., 2000. NEW copy. Hardcover,
decorated boards. Maps, diagrams, illustrations, photographs, tour
guide, index, 540 pages.
$48.00
Horne, Alistair,
THE PRICE OF GLORY: Verdun 1916
.VG. Trade PAPERBACK.
(Penguin Books, 1986). Photographs, index, 362 pages. Abridged edition.
~~~ Verdun was the battle which lasted ten months; the battle in which at least 700,000 men fell, along a front of fifteen miles; the battle whose aim was less to defeat the enemy than to bleed him to death; the battle ground whose once firtile terrain is even now the 'nearest thing to desert in Europe'.
~~~ But this book is very much more than a chronicle of the facts of death. It is a profoundly moving, sympathetic study of the men who fought there, and one that shows Verdun
to be the key to an understanding of the First World War -- the key to the minds of those who waged it, to the traditions that bound them, and to the world that gave them the opportunity.
$15.00
German General Staff.
YPRES, 1914. Constable & Co, London, 1919., NF/G. First Edition. Head & toe of
dust jacket spine chipped. About 1/5th (lower left corner) of front
panel of DJ missing. DJ in mylar protector. Book itself nearly
immaculate, tight & bright. Clean inside & out. 5.5x8. AN OFFICIAL ACCOUNT
PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE GERMAN GENERAL STAFF, With Introduction
and Notes by the Historical Section (Military Branch), Committee of
Imperial Defence. Translation into English by "G.C.W." Maps,
extensive
notes, appendices, index, 136 pp. Table of contents as follows:
Introduction; German Preface; Preliminary Remarks; The Theatre of
Operations; The Advance of the Fourth Army; The Operations of the
Fourth Army, 20th-31st October 1914; The Attempt to Break through
South of Ypres; The Operations of the Fourth Army from the End of
October to the 9th November 1914; The Last Phase; Conclusion.
Appendices as follows: Order of Battle of the Fourth Army; Order
of
Battle of the Army Group Fabeck; Order of Battle of the Group
Gerok;
Order of Battle of the Army Group Linsingen; INDEX. ;
$60.00
German General Staff.
YPRES 1914: AN OFFICIAL GERMAN ACCOUNT, THE GENERAL STAFF
. NEW copy, Battery Press, 1994.
Hardcover issued without dustjacket. 160 pages.
~~~ This is a reprint of the rare English translation of this Official Account written by the German General Staff in 1920. It describes in great detail the German Offensive at Ypres in Flanders during October & November 1914. This attack was against British & Canadian troops. In addition, there is an introduction by the British Historical Section which places the campaign in the context of British plans & operations.
$34.00
Groom, Winston,
A STORM IN FLANDERS, THE YPRES SALIENT, 1914-1918:
Tragedy and Triumph on the Western Front ..
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket,
(NY: Grove/Atlantic, Inc, 2002).
introduction, Author's Note on Unit Sizes and Designations, 66 b&w photos
& illus., 5 maps, bibliographic notes, source notes, index, maps as rear
endpapers, 276 pages.
~~~ From Kirkus Reviews:
A somber portrait of early modern war in one of its
most hellish manifestations. Best known for the novel
Forrest Gump (1986), Groom is also a seasoned writer on
historical subjects (Shrouds of Glory, 1995, etc).
The
present study brings us little that other histories do
not-Stanley Weintraub's recent Silent Night,
for instance, focuses on the famed Christmas truce of
1914, while John Keegan's The First World War
gives extensive coverage on the Ypres
Salient-but it relates the terrible events of four
years with fluency and sometimes unpleasant vividness.
From Groom we learn that a single 1917 battle along the
Belgian front "enriched the Flanders earth with the
corpses of some
228,000 Englishmen and Germans, not to mention about
20,000 French, all in an area not much longer than
Manhattan Island." He adds that we still do not have
an accurate number of total deaths in the Ypres area,
and that statisticians can
only posit the true, and staggering, extent of the
bloodshed. All those corpses
over four years lent the trenches on both sides an
infernal aspect, which Groom
evokes with well-chosen quotations from the combatants:
a Canadian soldier relates
that the "whole salient had an odor beyond
description," which does not stop Groom from doing his
best to describe the smells, sights, and sounds of a
battle
that seemed to go on forever. (Another Canadian
soldier, John Macrae, wrote the
poem "In Flanders Fields," the Ypres front's best-known
literary monument.)
Groom's account, full of detail and the smell of
gunsmoke, is expertly paced and
free of dull stretches, unlike more technical
studies of the Ypres Salient: he
knows just when enough is enough, when it's time to
pull his lens from close-ups of hand-to-hand fighting
and exploding Germans up to the big picture of
Ypres in the overall context of WWI. A fine narrative
that will be of much interest to students of military
history.
~~~ Hardcover originally published at $27.50, now OUT OF PRINT.
Gilbert, Martin,
THE FIRST WORLD WAR: A Complete History..
NEW copy. Hardcover with dust jacket. Photographs, maps, page-end notes, bibliography, index, 615 pages.
Horne, Charles F. (Editor in Chief) and
Walter F. Austin (Directing Editor),
SOURCE RECORDS OF THE GREAT WAR..
Complete in seven volumes, with four supplementary volumes. American Legion Edition.
Joffre, von Ludendorff, Foch & Wilhelm.
THE TWO BATTLES OF THE
MARNE.
Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, 1927., VG. First Edition.
No DJ. Front cover starting to loosen. Lower corner of front
board slightly frayed & bumped. Otherwise a clean, sound copy
with very little wear. Lettering bright on front & on spine.
Accounts on the two battles of the Marne River, 1914 & 1918,
by the two French leaders, Marshal Joffre & Marshal Foch, and
the two German leaders General von Ludendorff and Crown Prince
Wilhelm. 229 pp.
Prior, Robin and
Trevor Wilson (General Editor: John Keegan),
THE FIRST WORLD WAR (Cassel's History of Warfare Series)..
NEW copy, hardcover with dust jacket, 8x11.
Cassell & Co., 2000. Illustrated throughout, 28 color maps, chronology, biographies, suggested further readings, index, 224 pages. "World War I created the modern world. By ushering in modern techniques of warfare and redrawing the boundaries of Europe, the war forever changed how wars would be fought and how politics would be conducted. In this concise and authoritative history packed with photographs and specially commissioned battle maps, historians Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson vividly bring back to life this worldwide conflict, its horrific toll, and its significant consequences." British import. OUT OF PRINT.
McCarthy, Chris,
THE SOMME: THE DAY-BY-DAY ACCOUNT.
Greenwich Editions., 1996. NEW copy. Hardcover. Glossy illustrated
boards issued without dust jacket. Glossy paper throughout. 9x11.
Profusely illustrated with maps and photographs. Appendices,
bibliography, index, 176 pages.
major campaigns, and the consequences of the First World War, compressing a lifetime of knowledge into a single definitive volume. Written in crisp, compelling prose and enlivened with vivid photographs, many of which have never appeared in print before, and detailed maps, The First World War re-creates this world-altering conflict both on and off the battlefield: the clash of ideologies between the colonial powers at the center of the war, the social and economic unrest that swept Europe both before and after, the military strategies employed with stunning success and tragic failure in the various theaters of war, the terms of peace and why it did not last. Drawing on material culled from many countries, Strachan offers a fresh, clear-sighted perspective on how the war not only redrew the map of the world but also set in motion the most dangerous conflicts of today. Deeply learned and powerfully written, The First World War will stand as a landmark of contemporary history. " ~~~ From Publishers Weekly:
"One of the leading historians of WWI offers this superior one-volume version of his massive projected three-volume work, the first volume of which, To Arms, clocked in at 1250-plus pages last year. Strachan strenuously avoids the traditional focus on the Western Front (and the British) and the conventional assumptions of generals' stupidity and soldiers' valor. The war as he sees it was a race among generals on all sides to create new weapons and tactics faster than their opponents, a race that the Triple Entente won. It was also a race among soldiers to fight with these new weapons and tactics instead of raw courage and numbers wherever possible. Yet Russia and the Dual Monarchy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire were totally unfit for a large modern war (one reason the czar and his empire fell in 1917) and were a source of fatal weakness to Germany's alliance even before Italy changed sides. The political background (including the rising consciousness of colonial nationalities conscripted for the war), social consequences and diplomatic finagling all face an equal amount of revision, leaving the book organized more thematically than chronologically. Readers already familiar with the sequence of events in strict order will benefit most. But all readers will eventually be gripped, and even the most seasoned ones will praise the insights and the original choice of illustrations. This is likely to be the most indispensable one-volume work on the subject since John Keegan's First World War, and will draw serious readers to the larger work."
Strachan, Hew (ed).
THE OXFORD ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF WORLD WAR I.
NEW copy. Hardcover with dust jacket. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998) Photographs and color
plates throughout, bibliography, section of maps, illustration sources, index, 356 pages.
Terraine, John.
TO WIN A WAR: 1918, THE YEAR OF VICTORY..
Doubleday, 1981., VG/VG, First Edition. DJ in mylar protector.
Original "14.95" price still intact on DJ. A nice clean copy with
no apparent flaws. Maps, photographs, chapter-end notes,
bibliography, appendices, index, 268 pp. $35.00
Thomas, Capt. Shipley,
THE HISTORY OF THE A.E.F.
Battery Press Reprint of 1920 Edition, in Association with the
Sergeant York Patriotic Foundation., 2000. NEW copy. Hardcover,
decorated boards. Maps, diagrams, illustrations, photographs, tour
guide, index, 540 pages.
German General Staff.
YPRES 1914: AN OFFICIAL GERMAN ACCOUNT, THE GENERAL STAFF
. NEW copy, Battery Press, 1994.
Hardcover issued without dustjacket. 160 pages.
