{"title":"Rachel Chrastil","description":"\u003cp\u003eDelve into the insightful works of Rachel Chrastil, exploring history through a unique lens. Discover her captivating books that blend academic rigour with compelling storytelling, inviting you to reconsider the past.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"bismarck-s-war-book-rachel-chrastil-9780241419199","title":"Bismarck's War","description":"'Compassionate and thought-provoking history' Daily Telegraph  'Superb on the human consequences of war, ravishing in its evocations of wartime life' The Times  'Fresh and compelling ... a tour-de-force' David A. Bell  Less than a month after it marched into France in summer 1870, the Prussian army had devastated its opponents, captured Napoleon III and wrecked all assumptions about Europe's pecking order. Other countries looked on in helpless amazement. Pushing aside further French resistance, a new German Empire was proclaimed (as a deliberate humiliation) in the Palace of Versailles, leaving the French to face civil war in Paris, reparations and the loss of Alsace and Lorraine.  Bismarck's War tells the story of one of the most shocking reversals of fortune in modern European history. The culmination of a globally violent decade, the Franco-Prussian War was deliberately engineered by Bismarck, both to destroy French power and to unite Germany. It could not have worked better, but it also had lurking inside it the poisonous seeds of all the disasters that would ravage the twentieth century.  Drawing on a remarkable variety of sources, Chrastil's book explores the military, technological, political and social events of the war, its human cost and the way that the sheer ferocity of war, however successful, has profound consequences for both victors and victims.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49562309984529,"sku":"GOR013121796","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49750364258577,"sku":"NGR9780241419199","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49985833271569,"sku":"GOR013144751","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51611979284753,"sku":"GOR014345299","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52664739791121,"sku":"NLS9780241419199","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0241419190.jpg?v=1751227369"},{"product_id":"bismarck-s-war-book-rachel-chrastil-9780141991610","title":"Bismarck's War","description":"'Superb on the human consequences of war, ravishing in its evocations of wartime life' The Times  'Compassionate and thought-provoking history' Daily Telegraph  Less than a month after it marched into France in summer 1870, the Prussian army had devastated its opponents, captured Napoleon III and wrecked all assumptions about Europe's pecking order. Other countries looked on in helpless amazement. Pushing aside further French resistance, a new German Empire was proclaimed (as a deliberate humiliation) in the Palace of Versailles, leaving the French to face civil war in Paris, reparations and the loss of Alsace and Lorraine.  Bismarck's War tells the story of one of the most shocking reversals of fortune in modern European history. The culmination of a globally violent decade, the Franco-Prussian War was deliberately engineered by Bismarck, both to destroy French power and to unite Germany. It could not have worked better, but it also had lurking inside it the poisonous seeds of all the disasters that would ravage the twentieth century.  Drawing on a remarkable variety of sources, Chrastil's book explores the military, technological, political and social events of the war, its human cost and the way that the sheer ferocity of war, however successful, has profound consequences for both victors and victims.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49747881558289,"sku":"NGR9780141991610","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49849562923281,"sku":"GOR013798160","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50883354689809,"sku":"GOR014104005","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52110766211345,"sku":"GOR014470373","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52485973868817,"sku":"NLS9780141991610","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52836385259793,"sku":"GOR014635000","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53065811034385,"sku":"CIN0141991615VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0141991615.jpg?v=1751163455"},{"product_id":"how-to-be-childless-book-rachel-chrastil-9780190918620","title":"How to Be Childless","description":"In How to Be Childless: A History and Philosophy of Life Without Children, Rachel Chrastil explores the long and fascinating history of childlessness, putting this often-overlooked legacy in conversation with the issues that childless women and men face in the twenty-first century. Eschewing two dominant narratives, that the childless are either barren and alone, or that they are carefree and selfish, How to Be Childless instead argues that the lives of childless individuals from the past can help all of us expand our range of possibilities for the good life.   In uncovering the voices and experiences of childless women from the past five hundred years, Chrastil demonstrates that the pathways to childlessness, so often simplified as \"choice\" and \"circumstance,\" are far more complex and interweaving. Balanced, deeply researched, and richly realized, How to be Childless will empower readers, parents, and childless alike, to navigate their lives with purpose.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49758692999441,"sku":"NGR9780190918620","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50893727105297,"sku":"GOR011667292","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":50999704551697,"sku":"NIN9780190918620","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52374544843025,"sku":"CIN0190918624G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52429724582161,"sku":"NLS9780190918620","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53533697638673,"sku":"CIN0190918624VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0190918624.jpg?v=1751036960"},{"product_id":"organizing-for-war-book-rachel-a-chrastil-9780807136799","title":"Organizing for War","description":"By the end of the Franco-Prussian War (1870--71), Germany occupied one-third of French territory, thousands of Alsatians and Lorrainers had flooded into France, and 140,000 French soldiers had died. France's crushing defeat in the most significant European armed conflict between the Napoleonic wars and World War I cast long shadows over military garrisons, meeting halls, and kitchen tables throughout the nation. Until now, no study has adequately addressed the complex, lasting effects of the war on the lives of ordinary French men and women. In this stimulating new book, Rachel Chrastil provides a lively history of French provincial citizens after the Franco-Prussian War as they came to terms with defeat and began to prepare themselves for a seemingly inevitable future conflict.   Chrastil provides the first examination of the problems facing provincial France following the war and the negotiations between the state and citizen organizations over the best ways to resolve these issues. She also reinterprets postwar commemorative practices as an aspect of civil society, rather than as an issue of collective memory. By the 1880s, Chrastil shows, the Franco-Prussian War had receded far enough into the past for French citizens to reassess their roles during the war and reorient themselves toward the future. Believing that they had failed in their duties during the Franco-Prussian War, many French men and women argued that citizens could and should take responsibility for the nation's war effort, even before hostilities began.   To this end, they joined the Red Cross, gymnastics clubs, and commemorative organizations like the Souvenir Français, especially in areas of the country that had faced occupation and that anticipated future invasion. Using extensive archival and published sources, Chrastil deftly traces the evolution of these private or semiprivate associations and the ways in which those associations affected the relationship of citizens with the French state. Through a novel interpretation of these civilian groups, Chrastil asserts that the associations encouraged French citizens to accept and even to prolong World War I.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50097860837649,"sku":"CIN0807136794G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0807136794.jpg?v=1762598063"},{"product_id":"bismarck-s-war-book-rachel-chrastil-9781541604094","title":"Bismarck's War","description":"\u003cb\u003e\"The best modern account\" (\u003ci\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e) of the war that toppled the French Empire, unified Germany, and set Europe on the path to World War I\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Among the conflicts that convulsed Europe during the nineteenth century, none was more startling and consequential than the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. Deliberately engineered by Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the war succeeded in shattering French supremacy, deposing Napoleon III, and uniting a new German Empire. But it also produced brutal military innovations and a precarious new imbalance of power that together set the stage for the devastating world wars of the next century. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e In \u003ci\u003eBismarck's War\u003c\/i\u003e, historian Rachel Chrastil chronicles events on the battlefield in full, while also showing in intimate detail how the war reshaped and blurred the boundaries between civilian and soldier as the fighting swept across France. The result is the definitive history of a transformative conflict that changed Europe, and the history of warfare, forever. ","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51037614342417,"sku":"NIN9781541604094","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51098711916817,"sku":"CIN1541604091VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51694258323729,"sku":"CIN1541604091G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1541604091.jpg?v=1751243994"},{"product_id":"bismarck-s-war-book-rachel-chrastil-9781541606357","title":"Bismarck's War","description":"\u003cb\u003e\"The best modern account\" (\u003ci\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e) of the war that toppled the French Empire, unified Germany, and set Europe on the path to World War I \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Among the conflicts that convulsed Europe during the nineteenth century, none was more startling and consequential than the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. 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The result is the definitive history of a transformative conflict that changed Europe, and the history of warfare, forever.  ","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51155766149393,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51155767623953,"sku":"NIN9781541606357","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53028116824337,"sku":"CIN1541606353G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1541606353.jpg?v=1750958663"},{"product_id":"siege-of-strasbourg-book-rachel-chrastil-9780674728868","title":"The Siege of Strasbourg","description":"For six terror-filled weeks in 1870 German armies bombarded Strasbourg, killing hundreds of citizens, wounding thousands, and destroying landmarks. Rachel Chrastil tells how the city became the epicenter of a new kind of warfare whose indiscriminate violence shocked contemporaries and led to debates over the wartime protection of civilians.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51855764554001,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51855764586769,"sku":"NGR9780674728868","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780674728868.jpg?v=1753784015"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-rachel-chrastil.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}