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The Changing History of the First World War
Trudell, Megan
http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=996&issue=143Date Written: 2014-06-26 Publisher: International Socialism Year Published: 2014 Resource Type: Article Cx Number: CX16521 The war the Tories and their favourite historians would like to spin is one where nationalism was triumphant and where workers and soldiers did their duty for their country. For other historians, the war is a patchwork of fragmented experiences and stories with no “grand” explanation. A truly historical materialist understanding of the war must be able to encompass and learn from the detail—whether of battles or strikes, psychological trauma or the assassination of royalty—and weave it into a world in which the development of capitalism brought about the bleakest and most horrifying catastrophe. And it must be able to explain how the material experience of that catastrophe drove millions to question and to revolt and to present the system as a whole with the most profound threat of its existence. Subject Headings |