First World War: An Agrarian Interpretation

ISBN-13: 9780198202790 / Angielski / Miękka / 1991 / 480 str.

Avner Offer

Opis

In this book, Offer presents a new interpretation of World War I, weaving together the economic and social history of the English-speaking world, the Pacific basin, and Germany, with the development of food production and consumption. In the special field of United States history, Offer shows the effect of American agricultural power on world politics, both before and after World War I. He describes how the social institutions of American agriculture undermined farming in Britain, and forced the British Empire to rely increasingly on overseas imports of food. Detailing the role of agrarian production and consumption in British and German defense, Offer examines the moral and legal implications of setting up whole societies as strategic targets.

Recenzje

This is a superb piece of historical writing.

Spis treści

List of plates; List of tables; List of figures; Introduction: Economic and social interpretation of the First World War; Part I: How was Germany defeated?: Society under siege: Germany, 1914-1918; Food reform and food science; Did Germany really starve?; Food and the German State; Collapse; Part II: The Agrarian Bond: The United States, Canada, and Australia: Late-Victorian Britain - an import economy; Causes of the Agricultural Depression, 1870-1924; The sod House against the manor house; `Like rats in a trap' - British urban society and overseas opportunties; Coast, interior, and metropolis; Wheat and Empire in Canada; Asian labour on the Pacific rim: The struggle for exclusion, 1860-1907; Part III: The Atlantic ori entation: Fear of famine in British war plans, 1890-1908; Power and plenty: Naval mercantilism, 1905-1908; The dominion dimension; Morality and Admiralty: `Jacky' Fisher, economic warfare, and International law; Blockade and its enemies, 1909-1912; Preparation and action, 1912-1914; Part IV: The other side of the North Sea: Economic development and national security in Wilhelmian Germany; Germany: Economic preparation and the decision for war; `A second decision for war' - The U-boat campaign; Neither dominion nor peace: Germany after the Armistice; Conclusion; List of sources cited; Index