The Great War is probably the most widely read about and most widely misunderstood conflict of our times. The history of this era is not simply one of military manoeuvres and battle weary soldiers but one with transformatory implications for world politics, economics, human psychology, culture, technology and innovation. In this seminal work, [the author] challenges the clichéd images of the Great War that have come to dominate popular culture. Rather than dismissing the War as an exercise in mindless futility, he argues that on the contrary it was vital to the national interests of its participants, and shows how what originated as a European affair became a global event involving not only the extended colonial empires of European nations but also Japan, China, the Ottoman Empire, Latin America and the United States. For victors and vanquished alike the treacherous course of this conflict set the stage for far-reaching economic, social and political change. In this tumultuous period the creation of new frontiers and new balances of power allowed strong national identities to develop and new varieties of political thought to materialise and ultimately provided the conditions for Fascist and Communist revolution and occupation in the decades that followed. -Back cover.