Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest

The Great War and Modern Memory

Paul Fussell · 363 pages

In this classic work, Paul Fussell illuminates the British experience on the Western Front from 1914 to 1918, focusing primarily on the literary means by which The Great War has been remembered, conventionalized, and mythologized. Drawing on the work of important wartime poets such as David Jones and Wilfred Owen, on the memoirs of Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves, and Edmund Blunden, and on numer

The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory 1874-1932

William Manchester · 896 pages

A Storm in Flanders: The Ypres Salient, 1914-1918: Tragedy and Triumph on the Western Front

Winston Groom · 276 pages

"The Ypres Salient in Belgian Flanders was the most notorious and dreaded place in all of World War I - probably of any war in history. It was said that you could smell the battlefield miles before you reached it - a fetid odor of death. It was where the poppies grew in Flanders Fields while a million men lived like animals in slimy underground trenches and from 1914 to 1918 slaughtered one anothe

The Guns of August

Barbara W. Tuchman · 575 pages

Published to immediate acclaim in 1962 and the winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1963, The Guns of August is the classic account of the cataclysmic outbreak of World War I in 1914 and the 30 days of battle that followed. This opening clash determined the future course of the war and shaped the history of our century. Its tense drama continues to enthrall readers of Barbara W. Tuchman's magnificent b

The Face Of Battle: A Study Of Agincourt, Waterloo And The Somme

John Keegan · 354 pages

*The Face of Battle* is military history from the battlefield: a look at the direct experience of individuals at 'the point of maximum danger'. It examines the physical conditions of fighting, the particular emotions and behaviour generated by battle, as well as the motives that impel soldiers to stand and fight rather than run away. And in his scrupulous reassessment of three battles, John Keegan

The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914

Christopher Clark · 736 pages

On the morning of June 28, 1914, when Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie Chotek, arrived at Sarajevo railway station, Europe was at peace. Thirty-seven days later, it was at war. The conflict that resulted would kill more than fifteen million people, destroy three empires, and permanently alter world history. The Sleepwalkers reveals in gripping detail how the crisis leading to World Wa

George, Nicholas and Wilhelm: Three Royal Cousins and the Road to World War I

Miranda Carter · 498 pages

In the years before World War I, the great European powers were ruled by three first cousins: King George V, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and Tsar Nicholas II. Carter uses the cousins' correspondence and a host of historical sources to tell their tragicomic stories.

The First World War: A Complete History

Martin Gilbert · 688 pages

The Longest Winter: The Battle of the Bulge and the Epic Story of World War II's Most Decorated Platoon

Alex Kershaw · 368 pages

Overview: "It was a cold December morning in 1944, deep in the Ardennes forest of Belgium. Eighteen men of a small intelligence platoon commanded by twenty-year-old lieutenant Lyle Bouck were huddled in their foxholes, desperately trying to keep warm. Suddenly the early morning silence was broken by the roar of a huge artillery bombardment. Hitler had launched his bold and risky offensive against

The Trigger: Hunting the Assassin Who Brought the World to War

Tim Butcher · 326 pages

"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 Princip, started a cycle of events that would leave 15 million dead from fighting between 1914 and 1918 and

Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage

Alfred Lansing · 282 pages

Bound for Antarctica, where polar explorer Ernest Shackleton planned to cross on foot the last uncharted continent, the Endurance set sail from England, in August 1914. The ship became locked inside an island of ice, and was later crushed. This tale of survival by Shackleton and all 27 of his men for over a year on the ice-bound Antarctice seas defined heroism.

Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors

Piers Paul Read · 318 pages

True story of a plane that crashed in the middle of the Andes mountains with 45 persons on board, only 16 survived!! The few who survived for 70 days did so by means of cannibalism !!! Very graphic, but an extremely good read to find out what us humans will do to survive !! God puts these young people to the extreme test!!

The Last Fighting Tommy: The Life of Harry Patch, the Oldest Surviving Veteran of the Trenches

Harry Patch, Richard van Emden · 256 pages

The extraordinary and moving story of a man whose life spanned 6 monarchs and 20 Prime Ministers. Harry Patch was the last surviving British soldier to have fought in the trenches of the First World War, one of very few people who could directly recall the horror of that conflict. In his autobiography, Harry vividly remembers his childhood in the Somerset countryside of Edwardian England. He left

Churchill: A Biography

Roy Jenkins · 1,020 pages

"Winston Churchill is an icon of modern history, but even though he was at the forefront of the political scene for almost sixty years, he might be remembered only as a minor player in the drama of British government had it not been for World War II. In this magisterial book, Roy Jenkins's command of the political history of Britain and his own high-level government experience combine in a narr

A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall Of The Ottoman Empire And The Creation Of The Modern Middle East

David Fromkin · 635 pages

Traces Great Britain's influence on Middle East politics since World War I, and describes Britain's changing interests in the region.

The War That Ended Peace: The Road To 1914

Margaret MacMillan · 761 pages

From the bestselling and award-winning author of Paris 1919 comes a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, a fascinating portrait of Europe from 1900 up to the outbreak of World War I. The century since the end of the Napoleonic wars had been the most peaceful era Europe had known since the fall of the Roman Empire. In the first years of the twentieth century, Europe believed it was marching to a go

The Age of Extremes: A History of the World 1914-1991

Eric Hobsbawm · 627 pages

In this masterful and highly accessible study of our times, one of the world's leading historians sheds exciting new light on our understanding of the twentieth century, with incisive assessments of events that have marked this turbulent period. Eric Hobsbawm, whose own life spans this century, deftly examines from both personal and scholarly perspectives such events as the great economic depre

Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia

Michael Korda

Treaties, Trenches, Mud, and Blood

Nathan Hale · 124 pages

"World War I set the tone for the 20th century and introduced a new type of warfare: global, mechanical, and brutal. Nathan Hale has gathered some of the most fascinating true-life tales from the war and given them his inimitable Hazardous Tales twist. Easy to understand, funny, informative, and lively, this series is the best way to be introduced to some of the most well-known battles (and little

Fatal Passage: The Story of John Rae, the Arctic Hero Time Forgot

Ken McGoogan · 336 pages

Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World

Liaquat Ahamed · 564 pages

With penetrating insights for today, this vital history of the world economic collapse of the late 1920s offers unforgettable portraits of the four men whose personal and professional actions as heads of their respective central banks changed the course of the twentieth centuryIt is commonly believed that the Great Depression that began in 1929 resulted from a confluence of events beyond any one p

A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War: How J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-18

Joseph Loconte · 235 pages

"The untold story of how the First World War shaped the lives, faith, and writings of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis"--Amazon.com.

Like Hidden Fire: The Plot to Bring Down the British Empire

Peter Hopkirk · 439 pages

King, Kaiser, Tsar: Three Royal Cousins Who Led The World To War

Catrine Clay · 432 pages