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These essays explore the discourse on war in Germany and the United States between 1871 and 1914 - in the era bounded by the mid-century wars in Europe and North America and the First World War. The concept of 'total war', which was prefigured in aspects of the earlier conflicts and realized in 1914, provides the analytical focus. The essays reveal vigorous discussions of warfare in several forums - among soldiers, statesmen, women's groups and educators - on both sides of the Atlantic. Predictions of long, cataclysmic wars were not uncommon in these discussions, while the involvement of German and American soldiers in colonial warfare suggested that future combat would not spare civilians. Despite these 'anticipations of total war', virtually no one drew the practical implications in planning for war in the early twentieth century.

The First World War was the first large-scale industrialized military conflict in the world's history, and it gave birth to the concept of total war. The essays in this 2000 volume analyse the experience of the war in light of this concept's implications, in particular the systematic erosion of distinctions between the military and civilian spheres. With an emphasis on developments in Germany, France, Great Britain and the United States, leading scholars from Europe and North America locate the First World War along a trajectory that began in the wars of the middle of the nineteenth century and culminated in worldwide conflict in the middle of the twentieth. The essays explore the efforts of soldiers and statesmen, industrialists and financiers, professionals and civilian activists to adjust to the titanic, pervasive pressures that the military stalemate on the western front imposed on belligerent and neutral societies.

This volume presents the results of a fifth and final conference on the history of total war. It is devoted to the Second World War, which many scholars regard as the paradigmatic instance of total war. In considering the validity of this proposition, the authors address a broad range of analytical problems that this vast conflict posed in the arenas of Europe and Asia. They analyze modes of combat, war aims, the mobilization of economies and societies, occupation regimes, the vulnerability of noncombatants, and the legal and moral issues raised by the industrialized warfare of the mid-twentieth century. The volume will be of interest to all students of war and society in the modern era.

On the Road to Total War attempts to trace the roots and development of total industrialised warfare, a concept which terrorises citizens and soldiers alike. Mass mobilisation of people and resources and the growth of nationalism led to this totalisation of war in nineteenth-century industrialised nations. In this collection of essays, international scholars focus on the social, political, economic, and cultural impact of the American Civil War and the German Wars of Unification.

On the Road to Total War attempts to trace the roots and development of total industrialised warfare, a concept which terrorises citizens and soldiers alike. Mass mobilisation of people and resources and the growth of nationalism led to this totalisation of war in nineteenth-century industrialised nations. In this collection of essays, international scholars focus on the social, political, economic, and cultural impact of the American Civil War and the German Wars of Unification.

These essays explore the discourse on war in Germany and the United States between 1871 and 1914 - in the era bounded by the mid-century wars in Europe and North America and the First World War. The concept of 'total war', which was prefigured in aspects of the earlier conflicts and realized in 1914, provides the analytical focus. The essays reveal vigorous discussions of warfare in several forums - among soldiers, statesmen, women's groups and educators - on both sides of the Atlantic. Predictions of long, cataclysmic wars were not uncommon in these discussions, while the involvement of German and American soldiers in colonial warfare suggested that future combat would not spare civilians. Despite these 'anticipations of total war', virtually no one drew the practical implications in planning for war in the early twentieth century.

The First World War was the first large-scale industrialized military conflict in the world's history, and it gave birth to the concept of total war. The essays in this 2000 volume analyse the experience of the war in light of this concept's implications, in particular the systematic erosion of distinctions between the military and civilian spheres. With an emphasis on developments in Germany, France, Great Britain and the United States, leading scholars from Europe and North America locate the First World War along a trajectory that began in the wars of the middle of the nineteenth century and culminated in worldwide conflict in the middle of the twentieth. The essays explore the efforts of soldiers and statesmen, industrialists and financiers, professionals and civilian activists to adjust to the titanic, pervasive pressures that the military stalemate on the western front imposed on belligerent and neutral societies.

This volume presents the results of a fifth and final conference on the history of total war. It is devoted to the Second World War, which many scholars regard as the paradigmatic instance of total war. In considering the validity of this proposition, the authors address a broad range of analytical problems that this vast conflict posed in the arenas of Europe and Asia. They analyze modes of combat, war aims, the mobilization of economies and societies, occupation regimes, the vulnerability of noncombatants, and the legal and moral issues raised by the industrialized warfare of the mid-twentieth century. The volume will be of interest to all students of war and society in the modern era.

This volume investigates a critical moment in the history of warfare. It assembles historians of the early modern and modern eras to speak to one another across the great historiographical divide that has traditionally separated them. The central questions in the volume have to do with the historical place of revolutionary warfare on both sides of the Atlantic - the degree to which they extended practices common in the eighteenth century or introduced fundamentally new forms of warfare. Among the topics covered in the volume are the global dimensions of warfare, logistics, universal military service and the mobilization of noncombatants, occupation, and the impact of war on civilian life in both Europe and North America.