There has nothing been published like this before. The author definately acheives her purpose in this book and wrote an astounding account that I recommend to all who study or enjoy reading about WWI-WWII. In The War Come Home Cohen reviews the effects of the high numbers of WWI veterans on the nations of Britain and Germany and the two nations' responses. A focus is on the discontent that grew within Germany's veterans at their Reich's determination and inability to provide for their soldiers and at England's refusal to support veterans, citing it as a matter of charity of which the private sector was responsible. Cohen shows how both nations took completely different determinations on the issue of providing for wounded vets and how this related to propelling the introduction of WWII.
She (the author) uses excellent and extensive research of both primary and secondary sources and in a style more inclined toward that of a political scientist than a historian offers empirical data as evidence. However, she also uses examples to understand the men and their families in a way that makes you sympathize with them but not feel pity for them.
A criticism of this book would be that it is a bit longer than probably necessary. Cohen's examples could have been reduced in number and the book still could have acheived its purpose.
Product Description
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.
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