Picture It!

A soldier's sketchbook : the illustrated First World War diary of R.H. Rabjohn by R.H. Rabjohn/John Wilson

Canada : Tundra Books, [2017]     

112 p. : ill. ; 22 x 24 cm.

I'm always interested in WWI, the war that turned the European violence inward instead of outward and ripped the façade off the elegant civilization of Europe at a cost of the deaths of millions of combatants and many civilians.

This WWI book is a special addition to the literature of that "Great War." It consists of the sketches from the war done by R.H. Rabjohn, a soldier from Canada, who saw combat from April 1917 until the end of the war on November 11, 1918. 

It was Rabjohn's official duties as a soldier-sketch artist that allowed him to carry a sketch book (something that was prohibited to other soldiers). He also kept a diary and the author, John Wilson, has done a fine job of organizing the sketches and diary entries into a logical and easy to follow whole.  Doing drafts and support work at the front meant that Rabjohn was frequently in great danger and witnessed first hand the horrors of trench warfare that marked WWI.  

Given its visual appeal, shortness, and direct narrative, this book would be a great way of introducing World War I to teens and hopefully would interest some in wanting to know more about this nation shattering event - the tragic consequences of which continue into the present.

 

     

Remission

 

A Short History of the Weimar Republic by Colin Storer

London : Bloomsbury Academic, 2019, c2013.

vii, 239 p. : ill., map ; 23 cm.   

I really love history and when I was putting this new book on the shelf the other day, I realized that I really don't know much about the Weimar Republic, that dynamic and short-lived German republic sandwiched between the ruin of one world war brought about by its preceding imperial government and the ruin of the Nazi, fascist dictatorship that marked the death of the Weimar Republic.

It was a striking thirteen years that Weimar survived, and the author is as interested in pointing out its successes and achievements as he is in documenting its eventual failure and collapse.  This was where I learned quite a lot of new information. 

I had always assumed - as many have done - that it was the crushing reparations forced on Germany after WWI that doomed the Weimar Republic to economic chaos and eventual disaster.  It's not that this was not a crucial factor in its demise, but I hadn't realized the successes that the Weimar government (under Chancellor Stresemann) had in negotiating down the burdens of its reparations. However, the fragility fo Weimar's economy and its dependence on the chaotic international economic system made it especially susceptible to the onset of the great depression in 1929.  

Storer also wants to point out that politically, Weimar managed to survive as a democratic state longer than other Central European states. He also notes the many artistic, scientific and cultural achievements of Weimar.  

There is a lot to mull over (and grieve) when reading about Weimar. Like many books of history leading up to the rise of the Nazis, one knows how it ends, but the pain is seeing that it didn't have to go the way it did and could have turned out much differently and much better, of course.

I'll definitely keep this book in mind if a student has an interest in the period.  It's an accessible and short introduction to this critical time in twentieth century Europe.

Storm of Horrors

Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger
[translated with an introduction by Michael Hofmann]
New York : Penguin Books, 2016.
xxx, 288 p. ; 22 cm.

A couple of years ago I was reading several books on WWI, and I came across references praising this remarkable memoir of trench warfare by Ernst Jünger. I thought I would get to it sooner, but it's not always easy to find - even though recognized as a classic work of the "Great War." I finally added this new edition to our library and just finished reading it.

It is a stunning work.  As others have pointed out, Jünger makes almost no judgments about the war, but simply presents the events and his participation in them over the course of virtually the entire war.  He is able to offer us an unvarnished look at life in the German trenches on the Western Front.  His passages really convey the unimaginable intensity of massive bombardment and the ever present threat of death or horrific maiming.

And strangely, he doesn't really dwell on the deeper meanings of such violence and horror.  Instead he writes rather matter of factly about his and his comrades actions and situation before, during and after many battles - including the Somme and Passchendaele.

I wouldn't recommend this book to a reader as a first book about WWI, since it provides almost no explanations of the where's, how's and why's of the fighting.  But for a student who has read some about the war and wants something visceral and intense, then this is a book I can highly recommend.

Wealth Gap Becomes Abyss

The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion & the Fall of Imperial Russia by Candace Fleming
New York : Schwartz & Wade Books, [2014]
292 p. : ill., geneal. table, map ; 25 cm.

With the current trend of the rapidly widening gaps between the very rich and everyone else in the US and globally, the sad tale of the Romanov family ought to serve as a cautionary tale.  But how to convey the complexity of the last Russian Tsar - a timid man who desperately did not want to be the ruler of Russia, but also a dictator who gleefully launched waves of repression against dissidents and Jews which killed thousands?  And how to do it for a high school audience?  In The Family Romanov, Candace Fleming has done a remarkable job on meeting the challenge.

Her book is an extremely well researched book, but reads a lot like a novel.  She also balances the "Dowton Abbey" gawking at the obscene opulence of the Russian elite with alternating sections that powerfully describe the horrible poverty and oppression of the Russian peasantry and workers.  

from the LOC (also on the books cover)

I love reading about Russian history and about this period just before and during WWI, and this book is a great addition to that list.  Fleming does a wonderful job of including enough illustrations and of explaining the basics of the Russian Revolution (no easy task).  She also manages to flesh out each of the members of the Tsarist family and conveying the both the historical and human sides of the story of their downfall and eventual murders.

This would be a great book to recommend to any student who is curious about the Russian Revolution, but doesn't want a dry history of the events.  It answers a lot of the basic questions, but also stokes the curiosity of any historically minded person who will definitely want to read more.

The War to End All War Protests

From LOC

Unraveling Freedom by Ann Bausum
Washington, D.C. : National Geographic, c2010.
88 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 26 cm.

This is one of those short, but visually stunning and well written books that National Geographic has been putting out for young readers (e.g. photobiographies Bylines & Knockout about Nelly Bly & Joe Louis, respectively, or Denied, Detained, Deported about abuses of US immigration).

I really enjoyed reading this book for the way that Bausum brings alive the times of WWI and makes the assaults on liberties and freedoms by the US government feel very contemporary. She is good at comparing the various attempts to propagandize, censor, and stifle dissent to similar actions that have accompanied other US wars, including the latest "war on terror."

I was struck, in reading the book, at how US trends of anti-intellectualism and blind patriotism have strong roots in domestic policies during WWI.  In the frenzy of anti-German propaganda (see graphic above), not only was German language instruction virtually wiped out of the US education system, but over half the states banned teaching any foreign language.

There is a lot to recommend about this book to any student interested in US history during the period of WWI and its aftermath.

Sprawling History, Sprawling Novel

The Kremlin, Moscow, Russia

Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
New York : Vintage Classics, 2011.
xxviii, 675 p. ; 21 cm.

I've been wanting to read Dr. Zhivago for some time, and given it's length  (675 p.), it seemed like a good choice for a summer read.

I enjoyed a lot about this novel - it richly conveys the crazy reality that war and revolution can force on people, and the ways in which people try to find a meaningful life within that.  It is also a great love story, of course, which is probably part of why the movie version in the 60s was so successful.

I liked the historical content and movement of a lot of the book, but I did find that the plot began to get a bit unwieldy and confusing as the novel went on, and felt rushed to me at the end.  I also just found the increasing number of improbable coincidences became distracting as read the book.

This was a good book, but not a fantastic novel, in the way that Dostoevsky and Tolstoy have their truly magnificent articles.  However, if a student is a fan of Russian/Soviet history and literature and is looking for a good read, Dr. Zhivago may be just what the doctor ordered!

Study War No More

British 55th (West Lancashire) Division troops blinded by tear gas  during the Battle of Estaires, 10 April 1918

The First World War by John Keegan
New York : Vintage Books, 2000.
xvi, 475 p. : ill., maps ; 21 cm.

I've been slogging through a lot of books of European history and especially WWI - The Proud Tower, The Sleepwalkers, and now Keegan's First World War, which I pointedly finished on Memorial Day.

World War One is truly emblematic of the sickening, meaningless, barbarous, and utterly worthless human phenomena of making war - particularly modern warfare.  Especially painful is the fact that WWI essentially lay the groundwork for WWII.  As Keegan states in the closing pages of his book, "The Second World War was the continuation of the First...."

When I finished this book, I was left numbed by the staggering numbers of young men killed in the WWI.  This passage toward the end of Keegan's work gives a sense of the monstrous carnage that WWI unleashed.

"To the million dead of the British Empire and the 1,700,000 French dead, we must add 1,500,000 soldiers of the Hapsburg Empire who did not return, two million Germans, 460,000 Italians, 1,700,000 Russians, and many hundreds of thousands of Turks...."

In what moral universe can a person truly reckon with or comprehend such massive slaughter?  And then to realize that these numbers will be increased by a factor of six or seven (including many more civilians) in the horrors of WWII leaves me feeling despair.

I will say that Keegan has managed to pull together a readable and lucid account of WWI which is no small accomplishment.  He also manages to tell the story with moral conviction, but a light ideological touch, so that the reader is allowed to form her own opinions about where the guilt and responsibility lies for the nightmare that WWI was. I would definitely recommend it to a student who is interested in a detailed but compact history of the "Great War."

The Sad Tower

The Proud Tower by Barbara Tuchman
New York, Macmillan [1966]
xv, 528 p. illus., ports. 25 cm.

Barbara Tuchman intrigues me.  A woman who made her mark with several classic histories back in the 1960s when it must have been a daunting task to be a woman trying to get scholarly work published in the field of European history.  Not only did she get published, but is recognized for - not one - but several classic volumes of history such as A Distant Mirror, The Guns of August, and this book, The Proud Tower.  Every May as I've conducted the inventory of our collection, I've seen The Proud Tower, and thought, "I'm going to read that." In this 100th anniversary year of the start of WWI, I've finally gotten around to reading it.  It is a magnificent read, but probably one that would swamp most high school students.  I greatly enjoy history - and European history - but I have to admit that it was a long, dense - though enjoyable - read.

The Proud Tower is subtitled, A Portrait of the World Before the War: 1890-1914, and though, I'd call it a portrait of the Anglo-European-Slavic world, it is a monumental history.  Tuchman surveys the great political and cultural trends that defined the end of the 19th century and the run up to WWI: the declining power of the British aristocracy, the rise of naked US imperialism, Anarchism, Socialism, music, philosophy, and militarism.

I'm glad I read it, especially since I hope to read at least one of the new WWI books that have come out recently.  I can't say that I'd recommend it to just any high school student interested in history.  But if a student is a European history aficionado, or just looking for a rich book on Europe before the "Great War" then I'll definitely think of Tuchman's masterpiece.

Kipling's Choice

Kipling's Choice by Geert Spillebeen.
Boston : Graphia, 2005.
147 p. ; 19 cm.

This is a fine little novel about WWI. The plot centers around Rudyard Kipling's son, John and his yearning to be a soldier in the "Great War." The plot moves in and out of John's memories as he lies dying on a battlefield in Loos, France after being mortally wounded on his first day of combat.

His father is an uber-patriotic Englishman and, of course, the world famous Nobel Prize winning author. The story is in many ways a story of romantic ideals of war and patriotism crushed by the barbarity and grief of actual warfare.

John's remains are never found and this loss, the grievous toll of the war, and his own role in promoting war and his son's participation in it leave Rudyard a broken man.

This book would make a great companion read to Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun and Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front.