The Last Days of Mankind
February 14, 2023
Karl Kraus— EPILOGUE The Final Night Battlefield. Craters. Smoke clouds. Starless night. The horizon is a wall of flames. Corpses. Dying soldiers. Men and women in gas masks appear. A… READ MORE
February 14, 2023
Karl Kraus— EPILOGUE The Final Night Battlefield. Craters. Smoke clouds. Starless night. The horizon is a wall of flames. Corpses. Dying soldiers. Men and women in gas masks appear. A… READ MORE
February 24, 2022
Today, economic sanctions are generally regarded as an alternative to war. But for most people in the interwar period, the economic weapon was the very essence of total war. The… READ MORE
July 26, 2019
Andrew Offenburger— In 1883, an academic and traveler named William Henry Bishop posed a question on many Americans’ minds. “What is a world to do,” he asked, “when it has… READ MORE
February 18, 2019
Edward M. Strauss— Mobilized in August 1914 at age 35, infantry Corporal Louis Barthas spent almost four years in the trenches. After his health collapsed in early 1918 he served… READ MORE
April 2, 2018
Louis Barthas; Translated by Edward M. Strauss— In March 1918, after more than forty months on the front lines, under daily threat of violent death, disease, or dismemberment, French infantry… READ MORE
May 1, 2017
Edward M. Strauss— “On May 26 [1917] the first American combat troops arrived in France…. “The arrival of the first American troops coincided with a dramatic change on the French… READ MORE
April 6, 2017
Today marks the centennial of the United States’ entry into World War I. To commemorate the day, we sat down with Bruno Cabanes, author of August 1914: France, the Great… READ MORE
September 12, 2016
Libby Murphy— During the Great War, French soldiers struggled to make sense of their experience, both for themselves and for their compatriots. Soldier-writers used fiction to recalibrate civilians’ expectations about the… READ MORE
July 14, 2016
Louis Barthas; Translated by Edward M. Strauss— Poilu author Louis Barthas was born on Bastille Day, July 14, 1879. In honor of his 137th birthday, here are two letters that… READ MORE
September 8, 2015
Edward Strauss— One hundred years ago, young Americans were fighting alongside the Allies in the trenches and No Man’s Land of northern France. America would not enter World War I… READ MORE