World War I Collection Spotlight - Middle East, Africa, and Asia

1) African Kaiser: General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck and the Great War in Africa, 1914-1918

Author

Formats:

Description

The incredible true account of World War I in Africa and General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, the last undefeated German commander.

“Let me say straight out that if all military histories were as thrilling and well written as Robert Gaudi’s African Kaiser, I might give up reading fiction and literary biography… Gaudi writes with the flair of a latter-day Macaulay. He sets his scenes carefully

...

2) Army of empire: the untold story of the Indian Army in World War I

Author

Morton-Jack, George

Description

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Drawing on untapped new sources, the first global history of the Indian Expeditionary Forces in World War I. While their story is almost always overlooked, the 1.5 million Indian soldiers who served the British Empire in World War I played a crucial role in the eventual Allied victory. Despite their sacrifices, Indian troops received mixed reactions from their allies and their enemies alike--some were treated as liberating heroes, some as mercenaries...

3) Birds without wings

Author

De Bernières, Louis

Series

Vintage international

Description

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Filled with humor and pathos, the long-awaited new novel by the bestselling author of "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" tells a story about the political and personal costs of war, and of love, in one small community in southwest Turkey in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire.

4) Children of Armenia: a forgotten genocide and the century-long struggle for justice

Author

Bobelian, Michael

5) The confidence men: how two prisoners of war engineered the most remarkable escape in history

Author

Fox, Margalit

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

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Imprisoned in a remote Turkish POW camp during World War I, having survived a two-month forced march and a terrifying shootout in the desert, two British officers, Harry Jones and Cedric Hill, join forces to bamboozle their iron-fisted captors. To stave off despair and boredom, Jones takes a handmade Ouija board and fakes elaborate séances for his fellow prisoners. Word gets around, and one day an Ottoman official approaches Jones with a query: Could...

6) Desert hell: the British invasion of Mesopotamia

Author

Townshend, Charles

7) The fall of the Ottomans: the Great War in the Middle East

Author

Rogan, Eugene L

8) The first World War in the Middle East

Author

Ulrichsen, Kristian

9) Four years in the mountains of Kurdistan, 1915-1919: an Armenian boy's memoir of survival

Author

Haykaz, Aram

Description

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An extraordinary coming-of-age story and survival story of an Armenian teenager forced to live in a tribal culture among Kurdish peasants and Turkish beys. He rose from "infidel" servant to trusted secretary and escaped captivity, the only person in his adoptive tribe who could read and write.

10) The hundred-year walk: an Armenian odyssey

Author

MacKeen, Dawn Anahid

Description

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"The inspiring story of a young Armenian's harrowing escape from genocide and of his granddaughter's quest to retrace his steps. Growing up, Dawn MacKeen heard fragments of her grandfather Stepan's story, of how he was swept up in the deadly mass deportation of Armenians during World War I and of how he miraculously managed to escape. Longing for a fuller picture of Stepan's life--and the lost home her family fled--Dawn travels alone to Turkey and...

11) An ice-cream war

Author

Boyd, William

12) Lawrence in Arabia: war, deceit, imperial folly and the making of the modern Middle East

Author

Anderson, Scott

Formats:

Book, Audiobook on CD, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

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A narrative chronicle of World War I's Arab Revolt explores the pivotal roles of a small group of adventurers and low-level officers who orchestrated a secret effort to control the Middle East, demonstrating how they instigated jihad against British forces, built an elaborate intelligence ring and forged ties to gain valuable oil concessions.

13) A matter of time

Author

Capus, Alex

14) Mimi and Toutou's big adventure: the bizarre battle of Lake Tanganyika

Author

Foden, Giles

15) The road to En-dor: a true story of cunning wartime escape

Author

Jones, E. H

16) The sandcastle girls

Author

Bohjalian, Chris

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

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"Parallel stories of a woman who falls in love with an Armenian soldier during the Armenian Genocide and a modern-day New Yorker prompted to rediscover her Armenian past"--

17) Seven pillars of wisdom

Author

Lawrence, T. E

Series

Dover thrift editions

Formats:

Book, eBook

Description

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"It ranks with the greatest books ever written in the English language. As a narrative of war and adventure it is unsurpassable." - Winston Churchill T. E. Lawrence's autobiographical tale, the basis for the film Lawrence of Arabia, offers a firsthand account of the Arab Revolt against the Turks. Lawrence was already a living legend by the time of this book's initial publication, and his colorful, poetic memoir paints a fascinating portrait of the...

18) Theeb

Series

Film Movement

Description

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1916. While war rages in the Ottoman Empire, Hussein raises his younger brother Theeb in a traditional Bedouin community that is isolated by the vast, unforgiving desert. The brothers' quiet existence is suddenly interrupted when a British Army officer and his guide ask Hussein to escort them to a water well located along the old pilgrimage route to Mecca. So as not to dishonor his recently deceased father, Hussein agrees to lead them on the long...

19) The World War I: the African front : an imperial war on the dark continent

Author

Paice, Edward

Description

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The definitive history of World War I's forgotten front: Britain versus Germany in East Africa to secure the belly of a continent. On August 7, 1914, Britain fired its first shots of World War I not in Europe but in the German colony of Togo. The campaign to eliminate the threat at sea posed by German naval bases in Africa would soon be won, but in the land war, especially in East Africa, British troops would meet far fiercer resistance from German...

20) Year of the sword: the Assyrian Christian genocide : a history

Author

Yacoub, Joseph

Description

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History of the mass killings of 1915 in which the Ottomans sought to extirpate the Aramaic-speaking Assyrian, Syriac and Chaldean Christians of the Middle East.