A Part of History: Aspects of the British Experience of the First World War

by Michael Eliot Howard (Introduction)

As the first survivors die out, the First World War passes into the realm of history. This book is a consideration of various aspects of the British experience of the war in the light of more recent historiographical but also a prediction of how these areas are likely to be researched and written about in the future. The central theme is how our understanding of the war is likely to change now that first hand experience has been lost. The contributors to this book Michael Howard Gary Sheffield Dan Todman Stephen Badsey Terry Charman Esther Maccallum Stewart Gavin Stamp Brian Bond Dominic Hibberd Michael Burleigh Jane Potter Terry Castle Ian Bostridge Max Saunders Julian Putkowski Malcolm Brown Trevor Wilson Peter Hart Santanu Das Nick Hewitt Tony Pollard Nicholas Reeves
Lyn MacDonald

256 pages, Hardcover

First published June 26, 2008

About the author

Sir Michael Eliot Howard was an English military historian, formerly Chichele Professor of the History of War, Honorary Fellow of All Souls College, Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford, Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History at Yale University, and founder of the Department of War Studies, King's College London.

In 1958, he co-founded the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

In 2013, Howard was described in the Financial Times as "Britain's greatest living historian". The Guardian described him as "Britain's foremost expert on conflict".

Reviews

[Phrodrick slowed his growing backlog · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a consumer of histories, I had developed the notion that better histories can be written after the passage of time has decreased the passions of and dependence upon still living participants in the recorded events. Internally I had decided that this objectivism becomes more likely after the passage of a generation. The collection of essays in A Part of History: Aspects of the British Experience of the First World War indirectly takes up this opinion, If this were all that A Part of History speaks to it would be a book by and for professional historians, offering offing suggestions for future topics.

This is a topic of interest to some of the contributors, but not all. Certainly, this is a major theme in the first essay and as a theme it will be implied or directly addressed in several selections. This book is mostly about historians who believe that the existing literature has either ignored or inaccurately remembers events. Several of the essays reflect the passion of authors who are from populations previously not encouraged to claim their contribution. Previous generations of wartime historians have had little to say about that war and the women who lived it.

Historian Jane Potter points out that women who lost husbands, and children to the war were not likely to accept depiction of their loss as unnecessary or wasted. Sandanu Das askes us to view WWI from the POV of peoples of color dragooned or volunteered for the war in Europe, African and the Middle East where too many were relegated to another form of second-class status, while just as many got a taste of not being on the receiving end of colonial is. More than a few of these people would return to their native lands that much more convinced that they could and should have better lives, and they now had the wartime experience to fight for that respect.

Reading across the table of contents one gets a sense of flow, at essays move from the particulars of the battle field into more remote considerations of how WWI changed people. A better understanding of the received image of battle field armies shooting once fellow trench mates, now deserters is argued to be ahistorical. Proper discussion of the Battle of Jutland should take the student into analysis beyond the trope that it was a German taticle victory and a British Strategic victory.

Still more remote is how propaganda and movie making evolved and what effort was put into the memorials. In this later topic, Gavin Stamp discusses the war memorial as art. Pointing out that virtually no previous war had left behind as many national a memorial cemeteries. America’s Arlington Field began as a personal statement against General Lee’s upon whose property if was forcibly founded. The notion of a memorial to that wars unknown dead is another aspect of the recognition that this was a people’s war.

Least a reader forget that WWI is that much more remote, the last contributions speaks to WWI as an archaeological topic and one of how historians and people should remember.

I went into A Part of History: Aspects of the British Experience with few expectations. One adopts to the styles of the academicians, and some can be less attractive to a general reader. All have valid claims on our attention and all are promoting levels of understanding and appreciation not always considered as consumers of histories gather to hash out their pet themes. A Part of History may not exhaust the possible themes, but makes its case for those seeking new ways into understanding events.

[Bruce · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of essays with the central theme of World War One. Generally they are reviews of the literature on various war related topics, either specific campaigns or the war in general. One "Courage, Mon Amie" is the authors description of how she became obsessed with World War One and the reactions of people to that obsession.