Nov. 11 is the 100th anniversary of #WWI's end. As US troops were only directly involved for ~1 year, it pales in comparison to WWII in the American psyche. But WWI was a massive conflict that altered everything & set the stage for WWII. Here's some stuff worth reading/watching:
Sometimes, the total black and white and silent nature of so much WWI footage makes it seem incredible foreign to us. So check out "World War One In Color," which came out around the time of the 75th anniversary of the conflict. It's all on YouTube.
For reading, a good place to start is "The Guns of August" by Barbara Tuchman. It has its historical criticisms, but it remains one of the best works on the outbreak of the conflict. It was a book that influenced JFK's thinking in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
An all-encompassing account of what happened can be found in John Keegan's "The First World War."
A more involved & intricate account of how Europe found itself going to war is "The Sleepwalkers" by Christopher Clark. This may be the best work I've ever read on WWI, having not previously had a good grasp of the Balkan politics that lit the fuse to start the whole thing.
One of the most fascinating/tragic events of the war took place far from the trenches of the Western Front: Gallipoli. Read about the struggles of Aussie, New Zealand, and Turkish troops in "Gallipoli" by Alan Moorehead.
One of Mel Gibson's earliest films is "Gallipoli," which I also recommend. It's a moving account of what the ANZAC forces went through there. 90% on @RottenTomatoes.
For those of you who love a good podcast -- and boy am I one of those -- you can get the entire conflict distilled into six episodes and 20 some-odd hours of listening by @HardcoreHistory's "Blueprint for Armageddon." Fantastic listen. dancarlin.com/product/hardco…
And of course Erich Maria Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front" remains a must-read piece of literature of all of humanity. And the Oscar-winning 1930 film based on the book is also a must-watch. filmsite.org/allq.html
There's also maybe the greatest anti-war film of all time that takes place during WWI -- "Paths of Glory" directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Kirk Douglas. One of my all-time top 10 movies.
I can’t do math — 85th anniversary
And as a child of old movie buffs, I should also mention “Sergeant York,” which features Gary Cooper. It’s pretty good still.
