If you want to know why the world today is the way it is today, the first thing you should do is study WWI.
Oddly enough, it seems that the geopolitics of WWI are largely forgotten despite the fact that they shaped the globe for the next 100 years.
So it amazed me when this trailer hit my YouTube feed last night. It looks incredible. If it does not come to Huntsville, I will get it on PayPerView as soon as I can.
I’d love to see this as well. World War I is critical to the understanding of our modern world. I recently reread THE GUNS OF AUGUST and THE ZIMMERMAN TELEGRAM, both by Barbara W. Tuchman. These are must-reads if you’ve never studied this war. Just about every bad geopolitical debacle that happened after 1918 can be traced back to this incredibly costly, absurd, stupid, and utterly unnecessary conflict. It was caused by overinflated egos, selfish, short-sighted men. Just like we have today.
“War Bugs: A bug’s eye view of the War”
by Charles MacArthur (no relation).
First two chapters available online:
http://www.jamesmacarthur.com/CharlesMacArthur/WarBugsOne.shtml
You have to read between the lines a little to see the stuff that couldn’t make it past the censors, but well worth your time.
There’s a short documentary available at the usual places that shows how they did this. They worked with a woman who is a forensic lip reader. It was really interesting.
I definitely want to see this, but I think it’s only going to be showing for one day in my area. Hopefully, it becomes available quickly through other means.
I’ve been following “The Great War” on you tube. A week by week summary of what happened that week 100 years ago. Also Othais at C&Rsenal is doing a companion series on You Tube covering the small arms of the Great War. Both series highly recommended.
So true. You can make a long list: Middle east? –ww1. Soviets? –ww1. Nazis? –ww1.. Mussolini? –ww1. Japanese empire building (segue to ww2)? –ww1. collapse of 4 empires, with 4 new power vacuums that the League of Nations screwed up? –ww1. Great Depression? –ww1. …And perhaps the Spanish Civil War …. but I’m going to let Miguel comment on that aspect….