Bloomsbury Empires in World War I: Shifting Frontiers and Imperial Dynamics in a Global Conflict (International Library of Twentieth Century History)

Soon after the guns in Belgium and France had signaled the commencement of what would become the world's single most destructive conflict to date, the British, Ottoman, German, French and Belgian Empires were at war. Empires in World War I marks a turn away from the pre-eminence of the Western Front in the current scholarship, and seeks to reconstitute our understanding of this war as a truly global struggle between competing empires. Based on primary research, this book opens up new debates on the effects of the Great War in colonial arenas. The book assesses the effects of the war on Native Americans in the United States for example, as well as on the relationship between India and Pakistan, the British justice system in Palestine and the 'imperial scramble' in the Asia-Pacific region. Empires in World War I will be essential reading for students and scholars of the twentieth century. Review The current trend in general writing on World War I emphasizes its global aspect. At the same time an increasing number of specialised monographs address theatres long overlooked and participants long forgotten- France's Malagasy soldiers, the British West Indies Regiment- yet somehow the pieces never quite fit. The looming presence of the Western Front continues to dominate and define- until this anthology. The essays within cover a comprehensive and dazzling spectrum, from the Belgian Congo to Upper Silesia, and from th Four Communes of Senegal to America's Caribbean 'empire without portfolio'. Some focus on the social/cultural interaction of colonisers and colonised. Others deal with non-European ambitions- not only Japan's but those of Indian nationalists as well. What makes the discrete chapters fit together is their high individual quality- scholarship and presentation are uniformly excellent- and the author's success in presenting case studies and niche studies in a genuinely global context. The result is a major contribution to concretising the global nature of a war still narrowly understood, and to demonstrating that the war's causes and aims were as universal as its operational aspects. --Dennis Showalter, Professor of History at Colorado College. About the Author Richard S. Fogarty is Associate Professor of History at the University at Albany, SUNY. Andrew Jarboe is completing his PhD at Northeastern University, Boston.