DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

The War Come Home

Disabled Veterans in Britain and Germany, 1914-1939

Deborah Cohen author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:University of California Press

Published:10th Oct '01

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

The War Come Home cover

Disabled veterans were the First World War's most conspicuous legacy. Nearly eight million men in Europe returned from the First World War permanently disabled by injury or disease. In The War Come Home, Deborah Cohen offers a comparative analysis of the very different ways in which two belligerent nations--Germany and Britain--cared for their disabled. At the heart of this book is an apparent paradox. Although postwar Germany provided its disabled veterans with generous benefits, they came to despise the state that favored them. Disabled men proved susceptible to the Nazi cause. By contrast, British ex-servicemen remained loyal subjects, though they received only meager material compensation. Cohen explores the meaning of this paradox by focusing on the interplay between state agencies and private philanthropies on one hand, and the evolving relationship between disabled men and the general public on the other. Written with verve and compassion, The War Come Home describes in affecting detail disabled veterans' lives and their treatment at the hands of government agencies and private charities in Britain and Germany. Cohen's study moves from the intimate confines of veterans' homes to the offices of high-level bureaucrats; she tells of veterans' protests, of disabled men's families, and of the well-heeled philanthropists who made a cause of the war's victims. This superbly researched book provides an important new perspective on the ways in which states and societies confront the consequences of industrialized warfare.

“A valuable study that vividly presents the social and political ramifications of modern warfare. It is highly recommended to social historians of interwar Europe.” * H-Net Reviews *
“A thoughtful and thought-provoking book.” * Historical Journal *

ISBN: 9780520220089

Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 25mm

Weight: 635g

297 pages