The First World War - by Martin Gilbert

In The First World War, historian Martin Gilbert focuses on the conflict that changed the world, killed millions of people, destroyed four great empires and definitively altered the geopolitical landscape of Europe and the Middle East. More than that, he bequeathed to humanity new technologies of death – tanks, planes, submarines, machine guns, field artillery, poisonous gas, chemical weapons. It was the war to end all wars. It began at a quarter past eleven in the morning, on June 28, 1914, in Sarajevo, and would officially end almost five years later. To this day, however, we experience many of the horrors that were born there: the First World War never ended. Between 1914 and 1918, two very different wars unfolded. As a result of occupations, bombings, hunger and disease, more than nine million soldiers and five million civilians were killed. However, parallel to the conflict in which individual suffering and anguish reached a gigantic scale, particularly in the front line trenches, there was the clash of cabinets, sovereigns, propagandists and idealists who, full of political and territorial ambitions and ideals, determined the future and empires, nations and peoples as forcefully as on the battlefield. Everything underwent an enormous transformation: codes of behavior, literature, class distinctions. In the author's words, “the war altered the map and destiny of Europe in the same way that it cauterized its skin and left marks on its soul.” Gilbert constructs a narrative that is both epic and accessible to present the First World War from the human and ordinary citizen's perspective, while detailing its effect on future leaders such as Hitler, Churchill and De Gaulle. Full of maps and photos from the time, it is a worthy complement to its monumental The Second World War. “One of the first books anyone should read to understand the war and the century” – The New York Times “Masterful... Gilbert never forgets that the '“conflicting armies' were composed of millions of individuals... Of very easy reading... Gilbert's understanding of his material is enviable and the result is admirable. It is the story of the common men of the First World War.” – Sunday Times “Very lucid story... Successfully manages to highlight the individual human cost as well as the broader perspective.” – Daily Mail “A permanent aversion to reading about History has been triumphantly cured by the immense and passionate work of Martin Gilbert... We read it like a good novel.” – Scotsman About the author: Sir Martin Gilbert is one of the leading historians of his generation. An honorary member of Merton College, Oxford, for thirty years, he is Churchill's official biographer and author of eighty books, including Second World War (published in Brazil by Casa da Palavra); First World War; A Comprehensive History of Israel and the three volumes of A History of the Twentieth Century.