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>