by Joachim Bürgschwentner, Matthias Egger, and Gunda Barth-Scalmani, editors
Leiden / Boston: E.J. Brill, 2014. Pp. xvi, 533.
Illus., maps, notes, biblios, indices. $223.00. ISBN: 9004243658
New Perspectives on the Great War
Compiled for the centennial of the First World War, the 20 essays in this volume, by nearly two dozen scholars from a dozen countries on three continents cover some of the overlooked “fronts” of the Great War, aspects of the conflict largely overlooked even in the most detailed histories. So most of the essays are not about the fighting line, though some do directly address combat. The essays are grouped into seven parts, covering experiences at the front and in nursing service, prisoners of war, occupation policies, medical services and developments, the home fronts, propaganda, and memorialization.
Among the more interesting essays are those covering the military service of Reichstag deputies, the Ottoman winter campaigns in the Caucasus and Galicia, the experience of German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners of the Japanese and of Australian prisoners of the Turks, and the disastrous Serbian typhus epidemic
An excellent work, Other Fronts, Other Wars?, a volume in the outstanding Brill series “History of Warfare,” is primarily for the specialist in Great War and social history.
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