World War 1

From "Shell Shock" to PTSD, Veterans Have a Long Walk to Health

by Charles Glass

Iraq War veteran Will Robinson brought himself out of a mental health crisis by hiking more than 11,000 miles of trail from the Pacific Crest to the Appalachian, following the century-old prescription of British military doctor Arthur Brock. 

1918's Armistice Offers an Unsettling Model for Ending the Ukraine Conflict

by James Thornton Harris

Marshal Foch of France described the Treaty of Versailles as a "an armistice for 20 years." In Ukraine, the end of the shooting war will be only the first step in securing peace. 

Do Sanctions on Russia Portend a Return to the Interwar Order of Trade Blocs?

by Carl J. Strikwerda

The economic response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine has raised the specter of a new Cold War. But a better—and scarier—analogy might be the drastic contraction of global trade and the rise of colonial and imperial trade blocs between the World Wars. 

Does Novelist Robert Keable Deserve a Reappraisal?

by Simon Keable-Elliott

Briefly celebrated in the 1920s, then consigned to posthumous obscurity, the missionary and novelist, whose experiences encompassed the collision of colonialism, war and racism in the British empire, is overdue for rediscovery. 

Lindsey Fitzharris on the Pioneering Facial Reconstruction Surgeon Who Remade the Faces of Great War Veterans

by James Thornton Harris

As one battlefield nurse wrote home, “the science of healing stood baffled before the science of destroying.” Dr. Harold Gillies let the effort to catch up, arguably the only lasting "victory" of the Great War. 

How the Government Used the First World War to Crush the American Left

Adam Hochshild's book details the intersection of patriotism and legal repression that stifled the broad left in the United States, and explains how the war to "make the world safe for democracy" evinced an impoverished understanding of the term. 

Primary Source: Winning World War 1 By Fighting Waste at the Grocery Counter

A trade catalog for a grocery counter that could store bulk goods like beans and eliminate superfluous packaging was pitched as a patriotic way to save materials for the war effort, and speaks to contemporary desires to cut down on packaging waste.

Honor Those Lost By Working for Peace

by William Lambers

The annual remembrance of the war dead at Memorial Day is also a call to serve those who today are threatened by war and attendant hunger. 

An Exclusive Look at the New WWI Memorial

Sculptor Sabin Howard's ambitious design for the memorial relied on the modern power of digital photography to capture motion and the old-school forming of clay to freeze it in time. 

Again, Russia is at the Center of an American-Backed War for Democracy

by James D. Robenalt

The abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in 1917 removed a major principled objection to calls for Americans to fight for the sake of democracy. The moral lines are clearer today, but once again Russia is at the center of an American debate about intervention.

“Not being a man, I wanted to do the next best thing”: Female Gentlemen and the First World War

by Anna Elisabeth Gehl

Volunteering as nurses at the front of the Great War was occasion for many privileged British women to craft a new gendered identity incorporating the virtues of duty and self-control previously associated with "gentlemanliness." 

Sanctions are an Economic Weapon. Targeting Matters

by Nicholas Mulder

The Biden approach shows a reframing of economic sanctions from being a deterrent to being a non-military weapon of war. This has happened before, and history shows that sanctions against an aggressor nation can be expected to fail unless they are paired with aid to Ukraine.

Remember Blowback over Belgium: Will Putin Lose the War of Image?

by Robert Brent Toplin

The potential for global media attention to the atrocities that will result from a Russian occupation of Ukraine should give Putin pause to reconsider the cost of military victory. 

Black Veterans of the First World War are Often Overlooked

by Michelle Moyd

Nearly 638,000 African men fought in Africa and Europe. Some were conscripted by colonial powers and forced to fight or labor, and others hoped through service to stake claims to political rights. More global attention to their service and its relationship to colonialism is needed.

Records of 320,000 Punjab Soldiers from Great War Uncovered`

The records have the potential to fill gaps in understanding and even dispel popular myths and misunderstandings about the participation of South Asian troops in the British military in World War 1. 

How the Great War Helped the Drive for Prohibition

by Kathryn Smith

Hatred of Germans (and their beer) was essential to dry propaganda.

Finally, the Medal of Honor for the Harlem Hellfighters of World War I

"Unlike many Black soldiers who were limited to manual labor and custodial duties, the Harlem Hellfighters made it to the front lines. There were celebrated for their bravery, helping to change the perception of Black soldiers as inferior."

Could Wilson have Ended the Great War Two Years Earlier? Zelikow's "Road Less Traveled" Reviewed

by James Thornton Harris

Philip Zelikow's book is a provocative and contrarian argument that Woodrow Wilson missed a chance to end the first world war in 1916. 

Valor Roll: American Newsies in the Great War and the Flu Pandemic

by Vincent DiGirolamo

Newsies were a critical labor force in the early 20th century, connecting Americans to information. The author of a history of Newsies shows that their service drew praise in the First World War but suspicion in the ensuing influenza pandemic.

Human Tissue Preserved since World War I Yields New Clues about 1918 Pandemic

"The partial genomes hold some tantalizing clues that the infamous flu strain may have adapted to humans between the pandemic’s first and second waves."