The Home Front
The Great War is now typically regarded as senseless and futile, but most New Zealanders at the time considered it to be a war to preserve security and freedoms, to punish an aggressive enemy and to win a better world.
Yet the war years proved a tumultuous time, and bitterness and animosities ran alongside idealism and sacrifice. Families were broken up as soldiers departed. Civil liberties were curtailed as the government wielded unprecedented powers. Divisive issues, economic volatility and a rising death toll all threatened resolve. Finally, in the last weeks of the war, a devastating influenza pandemic arrived in New Zealand and extracted a deadly toll.
In The Home Front Steven Loveridge and James Watson offer a compelling account of how a small and developing country confronted the complex questions and brutal realities of a world war.
Steven Loveridge holds a PhD from Victoria University of Wellington and works from the Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies. His research focuses on the First World War and he has written and lectured on numerous aspects of the subject. His work has been published in various scholarly journals and anthology works, and in the international encyclopaedia 1914–1918 Online. His first book, Calls to Arms: New Zealand Society and Commitment to the Great War, examines the social and cultural dynamics behind New Zealand’s wartime commitment.
- ISBN-13
- 9780995100183
- Publisher
- Massey University Press
- Imprint
- Massey University Press
- Publication date
- 14 November 2019
- Format
- Hardback
- Pages
- 496
- Dimensions
- 250 x 190 mm
- Language
- English