Times of Uproar: Protests, Strikes, and Revolutions at the End of the First World War and their Impact from a Global Perspective

Frank Jacob (New York)

Marcel Bois (Hamburg)

2018 will celebrate the centennial of the end of the Great War and the establishment of a democratic government in Germany. In November 1918 rebelling workers and soldiers ended the history of the German monarch. They overturned Wilhelm II and 22 other German kings or sovereigns, fought for the establishment of women’s right to vote and paved the way for the etasblishment of a parliamentarian democracy. The protests consequently had an important impact on the end of the First World War.

For a long time the events were described as a “forgotten revolution“ (Alexander Gallus), but currently there seems to be a small renaissance of research with regard to the movements of 1918. However, many questions have not been answered yet. So far, the revolution of 1918 was not really put into an international and global perspective, regardless of the fact that it happened in such a wide geographical range, exactly like the Great War before. Between 1917 and 1921 millions of people revolted between Moscow and Tokyo, from Barcelona to Buenos Aires, where they took over the streets to express their wish for social and political change.

A planed volume shall further investigate the global dimensions of protest in the last two years of the First World War and in the years of its aftermath, while bringing the global interconnectedness of the events to light. The protest movements in the specific nation states need to be analyzed, and furthermore compared from a transnational perspective. It has to be answered in how far the movements were related to the war, what stimulated failure or success and who the political actors were that demanded the change. It is also possible to ask for the perception and therefore influence of foreign protest movements on particular national revolts.

The focus of the planed volume might include, but is not limited to the following topics

• hunger revolts
• soldiers and revolts
• peasants and rebellions
• students’ protests
• religious minorities and protest
• anti-colonial movements (e.g. Egypt, India…)
• national independence movements (e.g. Russia, Austria-Hungary, Ireland, Ottoman Empire…)
• strikes and factory occupations (France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Netherlands, Great Britain, Australia, Canada, South Africa, US)
• revolutions in Germany, Austria-Hungary, or Russia
• soviet republics (Bavaria, Hungary etc.)
• transnational perspectives on protest and revolt 1917-1919

Authors interested in submittin a proposal should send a short abstract (max. 1 page) and a short CV to fjacob@qcc.cuny.edu and marcel.bois@gmx.de until December 31, 2016.

Final papers ranging from 7,000-10,000 words are due until September 30, 2017.