Best products from r/wwi

That is just fantastic, in presentation, visual style, I'm very taken with what you've done in that short film. I don't have any anecdotes to hand at the moment, but perhaps I can direct you to my work- I write essays on the experience of the war- and let me know if anything strikes you as workable. I'd love to help collaborate on something this wonderfully presented.

I also have a novel "Killing is a Sin" which is set with Canadian soldiers in the First World War. I know you're interested in true stories at the moment, but I thought to mention this here, as I wrote it to tell a compelling story in a setting as real as I could make a piece of fiction, and with a mind to make it as visually imaginative as possible.

Best of luck with your work, please feel free to send me a message that we might chat in greater detail about this project.

Dankjewel, Tot ziens!

Really recommending the Forgotten Voices of the Somme for a British perspective on the whole battle, including the first day. I think it's best to learn about the Somme from a soldiers' perspective and this book is a great starting point. There is a similar book called Forgotten Voices of the Great War which is a book of British solders' stories and extracts from letters regarding the whole of the war.

Also, contrary to popular belief, I really like the Pen and Sword Military books on snipers, artillery and horses as they are not as detailed as some of the books I've read but a nice bit of easy reading if you're feeling a bit overwhelmed by some of the more advanced suggestions above.

I was very excited to find a copy of Military Strategy and the Origins of the First World War (1991) on a local bookstore's discount table this week. The owner had dropped it from $10 down to $2 because the previous owner had highlighted some stuff in one of the chapters. The book is otherwise unmarked. It's a very good collection, and I'm particularly pleased that it contains an essay by Holger Herwig on German patriotic self-censorship in the post-war years that I seem to have occasion to cite all the time.

This is not the first time I've had good fortune in this regard -- the same storekeeper is friends with a fairly prominent Canadian popular historian, and this fellow recently liquidated a large section of his library to make room for new arrivals. This included a very, very large WWI collection, which he had used in the course of researching this.

As a consequence, I ended up buying something like twenty hugely discounted books that would not only have been useful in their own right, but which were also just full of the historian's marginal notes. I've been having a lot of fun making my way through them.

Norman Stone - The Eastern Front is the classic standard, best single volume general history.

Prit Buttar's four volume series is the best overall general history, very comprehensive with a much bigger focus on military action, compared to Stone's which has more time devoted to things like the politics of the factories and how it affected production.

Archaeologist/Anthropologist Nicholas Saunders has emerged as a leading expert on Trench Art and their importance and relevance to the people of the time, as well as to people today. His book on Trench Art is a pretty interesting read. It talks a bit about the manufacturing of replica or 'fake' trench art and has some good guides.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/cka/Trench-Art-Nicholas-J-Saunders/1848846371

I don't know which category this would go under- it best fits "Broad overviews" but it's so in-depth I would hesitate to place it there. Maybe a new category of something like "Great Britain" or "English Perspective"?

Tommy: The British Soldier on the Western Front (link) by Richard Holmes (2005)

Incredibly in-depth overview of England during the War that thoroughly explains the experience of the average Tommy and how the English army operated. Uses extensive primary sources (letters, diaries, etc.) and is a good place to go if you're interested in England during the War, although it's pretty long for a casual read (~750 pages).

Did a bit more research, and came across a very positive review for Carriers of Culture in African Studies Review.

Also, my google-fu seems to be strong, because I found this portion of this book that provides useful information and cites further articles.

I have a strong interest in WWI aviation, and would suggest the following books by Peter Hart for anyone looking to learn more about the air war conducted by the Royal Flying Corps (later the Royal Air Force):

• Somme Success: The Royal Flying Corps and the Battle of the Somme 1916 - Overview of the Fokker Scourge and aerial tactics in 1916 (link)
  
• Bloody April: Slaughter in the Skies over Arras 1917 - Detailed look at RFC operations during March, April and May of 1917, with a strong focus on artillery cooperation and photo recon and the role they played in supporting ground operations. (link)
  
• Aces Falling: War Above the Trenches 1918 - The formation of the Royal Air Force in 1918 and the rise of massed tactics, rather than the cult of personality surrounding individual ace scout pilots. (link)
  
  Hart is a fantastic writer and draws extensively from published correspondence from pilots directly involved in the campaigns named.

Herwig's and Stone's books are the best on the subject.

Prit Buttar has a more modern and detailed account of Russia's point of view, more militarily focused as opposed to Stone's which is more politcally based. It's more detailed too as it is set to be a four book series. Here are the links to books one, two, and three.

A slightly different angle if anyone is interested (I enjoyed all three books below):

American art and WWI: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01DYHXX7M/

British art and WWI: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B010G0Q9JO/

WWI and Middle-earth & Narnia: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00PWOH1EM/