Home Fires Burning: Food, Politics, and Everyday Life in World War I Berlin

Davis' Home Fires Burning: Food, Politics and Everyday Life in World War I Berlin focuses on the "economic war" aspect of WWI. When Great Britain declared war on Germany, they put their greatest weapon, the Navy, to use. The British placed a naval blockade and stopped imports of weapon and food supplies. The British waged "economic war", with the intention of destroying the morale of the German civilians. German soil was poor for growing wheat and so Germany had to import two-thirds of the wheat needed to made bread. 1915 and 1916 had especially poor harvests of potato, which is a staple crop. Along with the British naval blockade, there were significant food shortages, which affected the general population. Davis wanted to introduce the reader to the food shortages and hardships inflicted on the public by the food shortages. Davis wanted to bring out the point that WWI did not only affect the young men going off to fight but the women who stayed home as well. WWI in Germany was all encompassing war, which included not only the military aspect of the front lines. Davis wanted to illustrate the government neededed to realize WWI also included the home front and the commoner who also was sacrificing for the war. It was not just the soldier, who was fighting for the Fatherland, but the housewife was "fighting" for the Fatherland too. She made her contribution to the Fatherland through dealing with shortages of essential food supplies, rising prices and long food lines. Davis continued her argument with the officials realizing the home front aspect of the war; the administration now understood the connection between the condition of the home front and the condition of the front line.The morale of the people at home would affect the fighting capabilities of the soldier. By the government being aware of this correlation, the soldier's wife, housewife, and factory worker wheeled a considerable amount of political power. "As Berliners cast it, it was still in midwar the women of little means, a figure without formal political rights but with great symbolic power as the leader on the right side of the economic war and of the war over Germany's future." Even though the book had a great deal of information, she organized the information into a format, which all lead to her point. The reader wasn't overwhelmed with facts thrown at them. Yet, Davis had a tendency of dehumanizing the hardships of the shortages of food.The reader never truly gets the feeling that the Berliners are starving to death.The reader is not able to understand the desperation of the situation. Davis was missing emotion from her book. She reduces starving situation of the common people into a premeditated political move.

This book is missing words from several of the pages. I dropped $30 for a book that is a fail with publishing and printing!

The book had pages with the words missing. Unbelievable...

Missing a few pages of print, informative book. Would be much better if I'd g it the whole book ! How important is the info on the missing pages ? Very if your doing a history degree !!!