Hamilton, R & Herwig, H. (2003). The Origins of World War 1. Cambridge, Cambridge
The website is owned by the Library of Congress and has an abundance of scholarly works in the subject of history. The book offers the background to the war beginning 1914. It offers an insight into state bureaucracies that made the decisions as well as how past experiences of the two Bulkan wars helped shaped the perceptions on WWI. It points out specific individuals that were responsible for the decision making during the war as opposed to most books that place blanket responsibility on countries involved. It offers an insight beginning in the 17th century, and as time went by, there was military revolution where there was increased professionalization of the service.
It draws its strength from its ability to offer official, precise figures from primary sources. The book’s weakness lies in its overemphasis of the background to the war in seventeenth century going forward yet it ignores the period just before the war begun.
Ferguson, L. (1992). Germany and the Origins of the First World War: New perspectives. The
Historical Journal, 35 (3) , 725-752. Retrieved from
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~nfergus/publications/Germany%20and%20the%20
rigins%20of%20the%20First%20World%20War%20-%20New%20Perspectives.pdf
The website belongs to Harvard University and offers huge database of scholarly works touching on varying disciplines. The article shows the sentiment of the Germans towards the war even before it begun. It includes an analysis of a banker Max Warburg, who advised the German Emperor Wilhelm II against the war. Germany’s confidence was boosted by weaknesses of the Entente Alliance partners as well as the unification of the country. The source helps us understand WWI by offering an insight into the German war planning machinery and the thinking behind the planning.
The article draws from original, primary documents. Some of the original sources were correspondences between people of high positions in government. However, the article has a weakness in that it gives a one sided perspective of the German planning of the war while ignoring the perspective of the other participating nations.
Mann, M. (2013).The role of nationalism in the two wars. Cambridge. Cambridge University
Press Retrieved from http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/mann/TwoWars.pdf
The website belongs to the University of California. The book looks into the causal relationships between nationalism and the two world wars. It seeks to establish whether the two are pro-cyclical, that is, if the rise in nationalism was corresponding to the emergence of the wars. A closer look reveals that nationalism may not necessarily have been the causative factor in the war considering that three of Great powers (Austria-Hungary, Russia and the Ottoman Empire) were multi-ethnic empires where nationalism could have played the role of dividing the empires. Some of the soldiers, like in the case of Britain, were not enlisting to fight for their nations hence questioning the idea of nationalism.
The book offers a new angle to the origins of the war that had for a long time been held to be nationalism. It also shows the role of traditional diplomacy of the great nations supporting the small nations. It shows that it was the war that generated nationalism and not the other way round.
The weakness of the book is that it suggests class ideologies played a greater role in igniting the war as opposed to nationalism, which does not appear to be the case for a majority of the participating countries.
Manning, M, J. (1920). Being German, Being American. Washington. Soldiers’ records
Retrieved from
https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2014/summer/germans.pdf
The website serves as a historical archive for the U.S government. The book details the suspicion and discrimination that German Americans underwent during the war and after. It offers an insight into the irony of the society that viewed them with suspicion yet they pressured them to enlist as a sign of patriotism. It also offers a number of encounters in which German American soldiers faced discrimination even from their compatriots when they were in the battlefield. It offers a description of how the suspicions affected not only German American soldiers but also German American civilians. It gives a different perspective of the war away from the contemporary stories of nationalism and heroism by giving personal encounters of those directly and indirectly involved in the war.
The strength of the book is in the author’s ability to give specific and precise events that detail the discrimination metered out against German-Americans, which may be broadly extended to reflect the treatment of other immigrant communities in the U.S. The downside of the book is that it lacks a historical background as to why the discrimination faced by German-Americans takes place. For readers who have no background in the subject, they might not understand the concept of the discrimination and suspicion of that the German-Americans faced.
Elsea, J., & Weed, M, W. (2014). Declarations of War and Authorizations for the Use of
Military Force: Historical Background and Legal Implications. Washington, Congressional Research Service Retrieved from https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL31133.pdf
The website is published by the Federation of American scientists and focuses of the security sector. The report details the legal measures that the Congress undertook in order to ensure that declaration of war was in line with the constitution. It offers the insight into the dilemma that nations participated in the war including the U.S faced in legalizing participation into the war. It was the first war of such a scale to the extent that not many constitutional dispensations had contemplated the legal approach towards involvement in such a war. Ultimately, the war had an advance effect on constitutional law across the globe.
The report offers specific legal remedies that Congress undertook to legalize America’s entry into the war. As a Congress initiated report, it offers an accurate report of the events with high credibility.
While it acts as a representation of the legal dilemma that many countries faced, it only illustrates the legal remedies that the U.S undertook. It does not cover any other country that participated in the war.
