Britain and World War One - Hardcover

Simmonds, Alan G. V.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0415455383 ISBN 13: 9780415455381

Publisher: Routledge, 2011

Synopsis

The First World War appears as a fault line in Britain’s twentieth-century history. Between August 1914 and November 1918 the titanic struggle against Imperial Germany and her allies consumed more people, more money and more resources than any other conflict that Britain had hitherto experienced. For the first time, it opened up a Home Front that stretched into all parts of the British polity, society and culture, touching the lives of every citizen regardless of age, gender and class: vegetables were even grown in the gardens of Buckingham Palace.

Britain and World War One throws attention on these civilians who fought the war on the Home Front. Harnessing recent scholarship, and drawing on original documents, oral testimony and historical texts, this book casts a fresh look over different aspects of British society during the four long years of war. It revisits the early war enthusiasm and the making of Kitchener’s new armies; the emotive debates over conscription; the relationships between politics, government and popular opinion; women working in wartime industries; the popular experience of war and the question of social change.

This book also explores areas of wartime Britain overlooked by recent histories, including the impact of the war on rural society; the mobilization of industry and the importance of technology; responses to air raids and food and housing shortages; and the challenges to traditional social and sexual mores and wartime culture. Britain and World War One is essential reading for all students and interested lay readers of the First World War.

About this title

About the Author

Alan G.V. Simmonds is a lecturer in Modern History at the University of Hull, UK, specializing in British society during the First World War and the inter-war era. He has published on aspects of British housing policy since 1945.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0415455383
• ISBN 13: 9780415455381
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336