The International Society for First World War Studiesβ ninth conference, βWar Timeβ, drew together emerging and leading scholars to discuss, reflect upon, and consider the ways that time has been conceptualised both during the war itself and in subsequent scholarship. War Time: First World War Perspectives on Temporality, stemming from this 2016 conference, offers its readers a collection of the conferenceβs most inspiring and thought-provoking papers from the next generation of First World War scholars. In its varied yet thematically-related chapters, the book aims to examine new chronologies of the Great War and bring together its military and social history. Its cohesive theme creates opportunities to find common ground and connections between these sub-disciplines of history, and prompts students and academics alike to seriously consider time as alternately a unifying, divisive, and ultimately shaping force in the conflict and its historiography.γWith content spanning land and air, the home and fighting fronts, multiple nations, and stretching to both pre-1914 and post-1918, these ten chapters by emerging researchers (plus an introductory chapter by the conference organisers, and a foreword by John Horne) offer an irreplaceable and invaluable snapshot of how the next generation of First World War scholars from eight countries were innovatively conceptualising the conflict and its legacy at the midpoint of its centenary.γ
Review
"The First World War was one of the most cataclysmic events of the 20th century. For many, the world stood still; for others their worlds were shaken beyond imagination. By placing time as the central framework of analysis, this collection of essays β based on research by up-and-coming scholars β pushes our understanding of the war and the experiences of those who lived through it in new directions. As we move beyond the centenary of the First World War, this volume is testimony to the fact that its historiography has never been in a more exciting place."
*
Professor Catriona Pennell, University of Exeter
*
About the Author
Louis Halewood is a DPhil student in History at Merton College, University of Oxford. His research analyses visions of a new world order, and the role of maritime power in its creation and underpinning, in Britain, France, and the United States between 1890 and 1922.
Adam Luptak is a DPhil student in History at Oriel College, University of Oxford. His research explores the topic of disabled veterans of the Great War in interbellum Czechoslovakia.****
Hanna Smyth is a DPhil student in Global and Imperial History at Exeter College, University of Oxford. Her research is transnational comparison of Imperial War Graves Commission sites on the Western Front, examining how they represented different aspects of South African, Indian, Canadian, and Australian identities in the 1920s-1930s.