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Book abstract:
For a long time now it has been common understanding that Africa played only a marginal role in the First World War. Its reduced theatre of operations appeared irrelevant to the strategic balance of the major powers. This volume is a contribution to the growing body of historical literature that explores the global and social history of the First World War. It questions the supposedly marginal role of Africa during the Great War with a special focus on Northeast Africa. In fact, between 1911 and 1924 a series of influential political and social upheavals took place in the vast expanse between Tripoli and Addis Ababa. The First World War was to profoundly change the local balance of power. This volume consists of fifteen chapters divided into three sections. The essays examine the social, political and operational course of the war and assess its consequences in a region straddling Africa and the Middle East. The relationship between local events and global processes is explored, together with the regional protagonists and their agency. Contrary to the myth still prevailing, the First World War did have both immediate and long-term effects on the region. This book highlights some of the significant aspects associated with it.Table of contents:
- Introduction (Shiferaw Bekele, Uoldelul Chelati Dirar, Alessandro Volterra & Massimo Zaccaria)
International and Regional Politics/Developments - Great War Intrigues in the Horn of Africa (Patrick Gilkes & Martin Plaut)
- WWI in the Middle East and Africa: Nationalist Movements in a Formative Age (Haggai Erlich)
- Aftershocks of the First World War in the Nile Valley (Anne-Claire de Gayffier-Bonneville)
- Transnationalism from Below after the First World War: The Case of the 1924 Revolution in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (Elena Vezzadini)
- Ethiopia, International Law and the First World War. Considerations of Neutrality and Foreign Policy by the European Powers, 1840-1919 (Jakob Zollmann)
Colonial Policies - Why did the Italians go to Libya? (Andrea Ungari)
- Askaris and the Great War. Colonial Troops Recruited in Libya for the War but Never Sent to the Austrian Front (Alessandro Volterra)
- Feeding the War: Canned Meat Production in the Horn of Africa and the Italian Front (Massimo Zaccaria)
- The First World War Seen from Djibouti: Controlling, Recruiting, Enlisting (Laurent Jolly)
- Living the War Far Away from the Front: Creating Territories around Djibouti (Simon Imbert-Vier)
Local Agencies and the War - Claiming Islamic Authenticity. The Ḫatmīya Sufi order confronting WWI (Silvia Bruzzi)
- “Our delight is for the amir of the English”: a Bornoan history of the First World War (North-Eastern Nigeria) (Rémi Dexière & Vincent Hiribarren)
- World War I and the Perspective of a Hashemite Order in Yemen. Study of the Chronicle of Ismā‛īl b. Muḥammad al-Washalī (Juliette Honvault)
- Writing WWI with African Gazes. The Great War Through the Writing of Tigrinya Speaking Expatriates (Uoldelul Chelati Dirar)
- The Italian community of Tunisia: From Libyan Colonial Ambitions to the First World War (Gabriele Montalbano)
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