Empires at War

John Darwin, Oxford University The First World War was a war not fought between nations but between empires European and Asian as well as "blue-water empires". This fundamental insight of the Greater War opens a powerful new perspective on the way the war was fought, the aims of the combatants, and the strains it imposed on their brittle systems of rule. The result is a major contribution to rethinking the First World War's impact on modern world (and not just European) history.

Jay Winter, Yale University Empires at War is the best account we have of the global framework of warfare in the period including and surrounding the Great War. The value of this rich collection is in its forceful demonstration of how deeply imbedded nations were in transnational projects, traditions, experiences, and dreams.

Jennifer D. Keene, Chapman University With contributions from this generation's most influential historians, Empires at War offers a stunning reappraisal of the First World War's global dimensions; revealing with brilliant clarity how imperialism reached its zenith, and then collapsed as a newly politicized ethnic and racial groups stepped forward to demand their rightful place in the world order.

Margaret MacMillan, Oxford University Empires at War makes and important and much-needed contribution to the history of the Great War by reminding us that it was a truly a world wide conflict and one which for many areas from Central Europe to the Far East continued well beyond the armistice of 1918. This strong collection of thoughtful essays expands our understanding of a pivotal moment of the twentieth century by showing the war's global impact and consequences.

Erez Manela directs the Program on Global Society and Security at Harvard University. He is the author of The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism (2007) and co-editor of The Shock of the Global: The 1970s in Perspective (2010). He is currently completing a book on the global eradication of smallpox in the Cold War era.

Introduction ; 1. The Ottoman Empire ; 2. The Italian Empire ; 3. The German Empire ; 4. Austria-Hungary ; 5. The Russian Empire ; 6. The French Empire ; 7. British Imperial Africa ; 8. The Dominions, Ireland and India ; 9. The Portuguese Empire ; 10. The Japanese Empire ; 11. China and Empire ; 12. The United States ; 13. Empires at the Paris Peace Conference