Author Description

The years immediately after the Great War were a time of great political, social and economic change. The book seeks to examine how the actions and events of this turbulent period were shaped by the Great War and how they, in turn, helped to shape both the period between the wars and beyond. We are still experiencing some of these effects today. Starting with an in-depth analysis of how the Great War ended and the effects of the Treaty of Versailles, the book offers an overlapping insight into many aspects of the period, such as the Spanish Flu pandemic (so named because of censorship); women's enfranchisement in Britain, their battle to retain the economic opportunities brought by the war and the revolution in women's lives brought by Dr Marie Stopes; the collapse of the Liberals and the rise of Labour; the emergence of modern Ireland, including the role of the IRA; the shaping of the Middle East; the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and the emergence of Communism in the twentieth century; the development of both American and British society in the aftermath of war. This was a period that can be truly said to have shaped the twentieth century.