World War One

<p><b>'Do we need another history of the First World War? The answer in the case of Norman Stone's short book is, yes - because of its opinionated freshness and the unusual, sharp facts that fly about like shrapnel' <i>Literary Review</i></b><br><br>In 1914 a new kind of war, and a new kind of world, came about. Fourteen million combatants died, a further twenty million were wounded, four empires were destroyed and even the victors' empires were fatally damaged. The First World War marked a revolution in the technology of slaughter as trench warfare, artillery barrages, tanks and chemical warfare made their mark on the battlefield for the first time.<br><br> The sheer complexity and scale of the war have encouraged historians to write books on a similar scale. But in only 140 pages, Norman Stone distils a lifetime of teaching, arguing and thinking to reframe the overwhelming disaster whose aftershocks shaped the rest of the twentieth century.<br><br> 'Bold, provocative and witty ... one of the outstanding historians of our age' <i>Spectator</i><br><br>'Entertaining and insightful ... one of the handful of living historians who can write with style and wit' Tibor Fischer, <i>Sunday Telegraph</i>, Books of the Year</p> <p><b>'Do we need another history of the First World War? The answer in the case of Norman Stone's short book is, yes - because of its opinionated freshness and the unusual, sharp facts that fly about like shrapnel' <i>Literary Review</i></b><br><br>In 1914 a new kind of war, and a new kind of world, came about. Fourteen million combatants died, a further twenty million were wounded, four empires were destroyed and even the victors' empires were fatally damaged. The First World War marked a revolution in the technology of slaughter as trench warfare, artillery barrages, tanks and chemical warfare made their mark on the battlefield for the first time.<br><br> The sheer complexity and scale of the war have encouraged historians to write books on a similar scale. But in only 140 pages, Norman Stone distils a lifetime of teaching, arguing and thinking to reframe the overwhelming disaster whose aftershocks shaped the rest of the twentieth century.<br><br> 'Bold, provocative and witty ... one of the outstanding historians of our age' <i>Spectator</i><br><br>'Entertaining and insightful ... one of the handful of living historians who can write with style and wit' Tibor Fischer, <i>Sunday Telegraph</i>, Books of the Year</p>