Selected Readings on the First World War
Introductory Readings
For a general introduction into the research of gender and war, see the Oxford Handbook of Gender, War and the Western World since 1600, edited by Karen Hagemann, Stefan Dudink and Sonya O. Rose (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2020). A general overview of the development of the research on gender and war can be found in its “Introduction: Gender and the History of War” by Karen Hagemann.
Part III of the Handbook on “The Age of the World Wars” includes several chapters dealing with gender and World War II from different perspectives. Chapter 15, “War and Gender: The Age of the World Wars and Its Aftermath—an Overview” by Karen Hagemann and Sonya O. Rose offers an informative introduction.
Further recommended readings from this chapter can be found in:
- the select bibliography of the chapter
- the extensive bibliography of the chapter
Many more titles you will find in GWonline. For our suggestions go here:
- Book Chapters and Journal Articles
- General Literature
- Literature on Gender, War & Revolution
- Methodological Introductions
Book Chapters and Journal Articles
- Cochet, François. “World War One, 1914–18: Daily Life in Western Societies.” In Daily Lives of Civilians in Wartime Twentieth-century Europe, ed. by Nicholas Atkin, 23–48. Westport, CT, and London: Greenwood Press, 2008.
- Jensen, Kimberly, “Volunteers, Auxiliaries, and Women’s Mobilization: The First World War and Beyond (1914–1939).” in A Companion to Women's Military History, ed. by Barton C. Hacker and Margaret Vining, 189–232. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012.
- Neiberg, Michael S. “Daily Lives of Civilians in World War I.” In Daily Lives of Civilians in Wartime Modern America: From the Indian Wars to the Vietnam War, ed. by David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler, 35–66. Westport, CT, and London: Greenwood Press, 2007.
- Strachan, Hew. “First World War.” In Strachan, European Armies and the Conduct of War, 130–49. London and Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1983.
General Literature
- Clark, Christopher M. The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914. New York and London: Harper and Penguin, 2013.
- Neiberg, Michael S. Fighting the Great War: A Global History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005.
- Proctor, Tammy M. Civilians in a World at War, 1914-1918. New York: New York University Press, 2010.
- Winter, Jay (ed.). The Cambridge History of the First World War, 3 vols. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Literature on Gender & War
- Daniel, Ute. The War from Within: German Working-Class Women in the First World War. Oxford and New York: Berg, 1997.
- Darrow, Margaret. French Women and the First World War: War Stories of the Home Front. Oxford and New York: Berg, 2000.
- Grayzel, Susan R. and Tammy M. Proctor (ed.). Gender and the Great War. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
- Grayzel, Susan R. Women and the First World War. London and New York: Longman-Pearson Education, 2002.
- Grayzel, Susan R. and Tammy M. Proctor (ed.). Gender and the Great War. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
- Grayzel, Susan R. Women's Identities at War: Gender, Motherhood, and Politics in Britain and France during the First World War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999.
- Gullace, Nicoletta. “The Blood of Our Sons”: Men, Women, and the Renegotiation of British Citizenship During the Great War. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
- Herzog, Dagmar. Brutality and Desire: War and Sexuality in Europe's Twentieth Century. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
- Jensen, Kimberly. Mobilizing Minerva: American Women in the First World War. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008.
- Roberts, Mary Louise. Civilization Without Sexes: Reconstructing Gender in Postwar France, 1917-1927. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.
- Stoff, Laurie S. They Fought for the Motherland: Russia's Women Soldiers in World War I and the Revolution. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006.
Methodological Introductions
Women’s and Gender History
- Rose, Sonya O. What is Gender History? Cambridge: Polity Press 2010.
Military History
- Morillo, Stephen, and Michael F. Pavkovic. What is Military History? Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013.
Film History
- Thompson, Kristin and David Bordwell, Film History: An Introduction. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2003.
War in Film
- Chapman, James. War and Film. London: Reaktion, 2008.
Film Analysis
- Monaco, James. How to Read a Film: Movies, Media, and Beyond: Art, Technology, Language, History, Theory. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009 (4th ed., completely rev. and expanded).