1917: War, Peace, and Revolution

ISBN-13: 9780198702382 / Angielski / Twarda / 2018 / 430 str.

David Stevenson

Opis

1917 was a year of calamitous events, and one of pivotal importance in the development of the First World War. In 1917: War, Peace, and Revolution, leading historian of World War I David Stevenson examines this crucial year in context and illuminates the century that followed. He shows how in this one year the war was transformed, but also what drove the conflict onwards and how it continued to escalate.
Two developments in particular - the Russian Revolution and American intervention - had worldwide repercussions. Offering a close examination of the key decisions, David Stevenson considers Germanys campaign of "unrestricted" submarine warfare, Americas declaration of war in response, and Britains frustration of German strategy by adopting the convoy system, as well as why (paradoxically) the military and political stalemate in Europe persisted.
1917 offers a truly international understanding of events, including abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the disastrous spring offensive that plunged the French army into mutiny, on the summer attacks that undermined the moderate Provisional Government in Russia and exposed Italy to national humiliation at Caporetto, and on the British decision for the ill-fated Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele).
David Stevenson also analyzes the global consequences of the years developments, describing how countries such as Brazil and China joined the belligerents, how Britain offered "responsible government" to India, and how the Allies promised a Jewish national home in Palestine. Blending political and military history, and moving from capital to capital and from the cabinet chamber to the battle front, the book highlights the often tumultuous debates through which leaders entered and escalated the war, and the paradox that continued fighting was justifiable as the shortest road toward peace.

Recenzje

The European nations had dug themselves by 1917 into a war trap seemingly without exit - this is the starting point of David Stevenson's new book. The events of 1917, war, peace, and revolution, the struggle to get out of the war, get here a thorough reassessment. The book is an example for the combination of competent analysis with a gripping narrative and clear judgement.

O autorze

David Stevenson holds the Stevenson Chair of International History at the London School of Economics & Political Science, where he has twice been Head of Department and teaches and lectures on the history of international relations. He is the author or editor of seven books about the origins, course, and consequences of the First World War. His publications include Armaments and the Coming of War: Europe, 1904-1914 (OUP, 1996), 1914-1918: the History of the First World War (Penguin, 2004), With Our Backs to the Wall: Victory and Defeat in 1918 (Penguin, 2011), and (co-edited with Thomas Mahnken and Joseph Maiolo), Arms Races in International Politics: from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Century (OUP, 2016).