The Great War

On the occasion of the centenary of World War I in August 2014--an unprecedented, spectacular pictorial history of the first global war in 380 black-and-white photographs, many never seen before, from Imperial War Museums in London.

This monumental, dramatic photographic narrative captures the war from the early arms race that developed around the massing of prewar battleship fleets to the final moments of the conflict with the sinking of the German fleet in Scapa. The photographs span the many battlefronts throughout the world: from the British Isles to the south Atlantic, across Europe and the Ottoman Empire, Sudan and East Africa, Jerusalem and Damascus. Here are soldiers from across the globe, vast battleships, dirigibles overhead, the streets of London, the first battle of Ypres, German submarines at sea, the beaches of Gallipoli, the battle of Jutland, the battle of the Somme trenches, and much, much more."A book of extraordinary power and clarity… it may well be the greatest anthology (yet) of World War I photographs...The sonata rhythm of the images, with their complementary and recurring themes, endows the ensemble with rare emotional power and reflective depth."
 
--Christopher Clark, The New York Times Book Review


“Intense and affecting…so many of these crisp images are haunting…Rich, riveting and often appalling visual history.”

—Dwight Garner, The New York Times
MARK HOLBORN has edited a number of books on photography, and has worked with Annie Leibovitz, Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Hiro, Susan Sontag, and Issey Miyake, among many others. 

HILARY ROBERTS studied at University College London, University of London. She is the head of Collections of Imperial War Museums' photography archive and has coauthored Cecil Beaton: Theatre of War (September 2012), also with Mark Holborn.