TheEditor needed a few days to digest a book.
It is a disturbing, heavy tome of 350 pages of black and white photographs. In the back, another 15 volumes are listed as published and 20 more as being readied for publication.
The year is 1925, the country is Germany, and it is customary for middle and upper class male government workers to append their rank from the Great War to their job title.
The author of the foreword to "The World War in Pictures" starts out by talking about soldiers bringing small cameras to the frontlines and calls the war the first war of ubiquitous amateur photography.
The author is well aware that some of the photos in the book show "the horrors of war in the most graphic of ways" and then goes on to say that "soft, pacifist, unrealistic, ignorant people will try to exploit these images for their purposes."
He continues to say that "despite human efforts to the contrary, the most significant events of history are written in blood."
At this point, you won't be surprised that the man ends with the statement that the book should demonstrate to future generations the "unique, ever lasting German heroism of the time."
TheEditor obtained this book for free when an old man died and not a single one of the heirs wanted it.
That is a good sign.
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