Product Description

This important contribution to the successful textbook series New Approaches to European History explores the comprehensive impact of the First World War on Imperial Germany. It examines military aspects of the conflict, as well as the diplomacy, government, politics, and industrial mobilization of wartime Germany. Unlike other existing surveys, however, Roger Chickering also offers a rich portrait of life on the home front: the pervasive effects of ‘total war’ on wealthy and poor, men and women, young and old, farmers and city-dwellers, Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. This excellent, well-illustrated study of the military, political and socio-economic effects of the First World War is essential reading for all students of German and European history, as well as for those interested in the history of war and society. Now appearing in a second edition, this accessible book reflects important new scholarship in the field and boasts an expanded and revised bibliography.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #142469 in Books
• Published on: 2004-05-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 228 pages

Review
"...should be a boon to every student of European history in the twentieth century." Military History

About the Author
Roger Chickering is Professor of History in the Center for German and European Studies, Georgetown University. He is an established scholar of modern Germany and is the author of Das Deutsche Reich und der Erste Weltkrieg (2002); Kar Lamprecht: A German Academic Life, 1856–1915 (1993); We Men Who Feel Most German: A Cultural Study of the Pan-German League, 1886–1914 (1984); and Imperial Germany and a World Without War: The Peace Movement and German Society 1892–1914 (1975).

Customer Reviews

The War Germany Lost in 1914
Roger Chickering's book is essential reading for students of the war which, as Chickering points out, cast a shadow over Europe until the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989.

He shows that, for Germany, the failure of the opening offensive in France signalled a long war which, due to the British Navy's blockade, meant that shortages developed almost immediately, and attempts to cope with this situation led to layers of clumsy bureaucracy being imposed which fell hardest on the least well-off.

As the war continued, discontent grew, and with it support for the Social Democrats and their allies. The response of the military, with Ludendorff de facto in control, was to tighten controls. The political divide within Germany increased, and when Ludendorff realised the war could not be won, he was able to shift the blame for defeat onto his opponents, a fact which was fatally to undermine the chances of the Weimar Republic gaining long-term acceptance.

Thus, Chickering is able to show that the roots of Hitler's rise to power were much deeper than the recession of 1929.