The First World War was a total war, that involved both the war front and the home front. These two fronts are often shown as separated, but were in fact intertwined. The book focusses on the many upheavals ordinary men and women faced during the First World War and the tensions between old and new ideals. Themes as mobilisation, violence, work and the care for the wounded, intimacy and family life, charity and resistance are approached in an innovatory way. The book also discusses the immediate afterwar period: the difficult reconstruction in families and society as a whole, changes in the labor market, new political rights and the position of men and women in the war memory.
The book was published in relation to the exhibition ‘Gender@war 1914-1918: men and women to war’ (BELvue museum, 9/9/2015 – 3/1/2016). It is available in French and in Dutch.
Eliane Gubin and Henk de Smaele, Femmes et hommes en guerre, 1914-1918, Renaissance du Livre, 2015, ISBN 9782507053321 / Vrouwen en mannen ten oorlog, 1914-1918, Davidsfonds, 2015, ISBN 9789059086777.
