By Graeme Newman (Author), Frank Simonds (Author)

What does it mean to “win” a war that consumes a generation?

Saving France brings together two of the most vivid contemporary accounts of the First World War—Frank H. Simonds’s They Shall Not Pass (1916) and The Great War (1915)—and reframes them through a powerful new introduction by Graeme R. Newman. Written in the shadow of Verdun, when the fate of France and the outcome of the war still hung in the balance, Simonds’s works capture the immediacy, uncertainty, and human cost of modern industrial conflict.

At the center of this volume stands the Battle of Verdun—one of the most brutal and निर्णative struggles in military history. Through eyewitness reporting and sharp geopolitical analysis, Simonds reveals not only how France held the line, but what that endurance required: the sacrifice of a nation’s youth, the transformation of war into machinery, and the emergence of total war as a defining feature of the modern age.

Newman’s penetrating introduction places these texts in a broader analytical frame, confronting the enduring questions of the war:
Who really won? Who saved France? Could the catastrophe have been avoided? And what lessons—if any—were learned?

This edition goes further, drawing connections between the First World War and the conflicts of the twenty-first century—where questions of war economics, alliance systems, national endurance, and civilian cost remain as urgent as ever.

Saving France is not simply a historical reprint. It is a critical re-examination of war itself—its causes, its consequences, and its troubling continuity into the present.

For readers of military history, international relations, and the sociology of war, this volume offers both a gripping contemporary narrative and a sobering reflection on the true price of “victory.”

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.218.

by Graeme Newman (Author), David Jordan (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

The Great War – “According to Darwin”
Reprinting War and the Breed by David Starr Jordan
Edited with a new introduction by Graeme R. Newman

What if the devastation of modern war could be understood—not just politically or morally—but biologically?

Written in the midst of the First World War, War and the Breed is a provocative and deeply controversial attempt to interpret global conflict through the lens of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Jordan argues that war does not strengthen nations, as often claimed, but instead weakens them at their very roots—systematically eliminating the strongest and most capable individuals while leaving the least fit to shape future generations.

This Read-Me.Org edition, newly introduced by Graeme R. Newman, situates Jordan’s argument within both its historical moment and our own. The introduction critically examines Jordan’s interpretation of Darwin, the rise of eugenic thinking, and the troubling assumptions about race and heredity that underpin much early twentieth-century social science. It also draws powerful connections to modern warfare—where the technologies, actors, and consequences of conflict have changed, but its human costs remain enduring.

This volume invites readers to grapple with urgent and unsettling questions:
How have scientific ideas been used to justify—or critique—war?
What are the long-term human consequences of mass conflict?
And what does the Great War still teach us about violence, power, and the fate of nations today?

A compelling blend of historical text and contemporary analysis, The Great War – “According to Darwin” is essential reading for anyone interested in war studies, political thought, and the complex relationship between science and society.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.185..

by Graeme Newman (Author), Will Irwin (Author), K. A. Bratt (Author)

What is war? Is it a contest of armies, a failure of diplomacy, or something far more pervasive—a condition that engulfs entire societies, economies, and ways of life?

This provocative volume brings together two of the most penetrating early twentieth-century explorations of modern conflict: The Next War and That Next War?. Written in the aftermath of the First World War—when the scale and nature of warfare had changed irrevocably—these works confront a world struggling to understand what had just occurred, and what might come next.

In The Next War, Will Irwin delivers a gripping and urgent analysis of how industrialization, science, and total mobilization transformed war from a clash of armies into a devastating force directed at entire populations. His warnings about chemical weapons, aerial bombardment, and the erosion of moral restraint read today with startling clarity and foresight.

Nearly a decade later, Major K. A. Bratt’s That Next War? expands the inquiry, examining the strategic, and psychological dimensions of future conflict. Moving beyond immediate aftermath, Bratt explores the rise of air power, ideological struggle, global tensions, and the uneasy balance between democracy and militarism in a rapidly changing world.

Together, these two works form a powerful intellectual dialogue—one grounded in lived experience, the other in strategic foresight. Framed by a substantial new introduction by Graeme R. Newman, this edition situates both texts within the longer history of modern warfare and draws out their enduring relevance to the twenty-first century.

At a time when war continues to evolve—through technology, geopolitics, and new forms of power—this volume asks a question that remains as urgent as ever: not simply when the next war will come, but what war has become.

A Read-Me.Org Classic Reprint. Carefully prepared for contemporary readers, this edition preserves the original texts while offering new insight into their historical significance and modern implications.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.237.

by Graeme Newman (Author), S. Eardley Wilmot (Author), Robert Borden (Author)

What if the next world war does not look like the last two?

At the turn of the twentieth century, military thinkers struggled to imagine the wars that were coming. On the eve of catastrophe, some warned that new technologies, global commerce, and fragile political systems were making large‑scale conflict more likely—and more devastating—than ever before. Few listened. Fewer understood.

World War Three? revisits those moments of foresight and failure to ask a question that now confronts the twenty‑first century: have we once again misunderstood the nature of the next war?

Drawing on two remarkable but often overlooked works—Captain S. Eardley‑Wilmot’s The Next Naval War (1894) and Sir Robert Borden’s The War and the Future (1917)—this volume examines how earlier generations anticipated, experienced, and struggled to comprehend the transformation of warfare. One book speculates before disaster strikes; the other reflects from within it. Together, they offer a framework for understanding modern conflict in an age of global interdependence, precision weapons, cyber operations, and contested sea lanes.

Edited and introduced by Graeme R. Newman, World War Three? places these historical perspectives in direct conversation with contemporary dilemmas:

• Can a major war be fought—or even won—without large armies on the ground?

• What happens when commerce, communications, energy supplies, and undersea infrastructure become primary battlefields?

• Do missiles, drones, and digital networks change the meaning of “war,” or merely its appearance?

• Are today’s geopolitical crises isolated events, or symptoms of a changing world order?

From maritime chokepoints and missile warfare to economic coercion and the limits of international institutions, this book offers guided speculation grounded in history. It does not predict dates or battlefields. Instead, it explores how wars begin, how they expand, and how societies repeatedly fail to recognize their early forms.

Written for readers interested in history, strategy, international relations, and contemporary global risk, World War Three? is both a warning and an invitation—to think more clearly about the conflicts of the past before they reappear, transformed, in the future.

Is the next world war inevitable—or has it already begun under other names?

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.152.

Edited and Introduced by Graeme R. Newman. The Immediate Causes of the Great War by Oliver Perry Chitwood

What if the real story of World War I is not the past—but the present?

This boldly reimagined edition places a powerful new introductory essay by Graeme R. Newman at the center of the book, transforming a classic documentary history into a searching inquiry into how wars are made—then and now. Drawing on Oliver Perry Chitwood’s original 1918 compilation of diplomatic correspondence, ultimatums, and state papers, this volume reconstructs the fatal chain of decisions that led Europe into catastrophe. But it does more: it asks what those decisions reveal about the world we inhabit today.

Newman’s extended introduction reframes the Great War not as a closed historical episode, but as a recurring pattern of international behavior. Nationalism, alliance systems, economic rivalry, and the language of “defensive” war are examined not only in their early twentieth-century form, but in their modern equivalents—from the conflict in Ukraine to instability in the Middle East, and the global role of the United States. The essay confronts a central paradox: that leaders who claim to preserve peace may, under pressure, construct the very conditions that make war inevitable.

At the heart of the book remains Chitwood’s original method—letting the documents speak. Here are the voices of statesmen, ambassadors, and governments as they justify, accuse, negotiate, and ultimately fail. Read in light of Newman’s analysis, these documents become more than historical artifacts; they are case studies in escalation, miscalculation, and the limits of diplomacy.

Making War – Then and Now is both a primary source reader and a contemporary critique. It reveals how quickly order can unravel, how fragile peace can be, and how familiar the pathways to conflict remain. For readers seeking not only to understand the origins of World War I but to grasp the enduring mechanics of war itself, this edition offers an unsettling and necessary perspective.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.189.

By Marco Romagna & Rutger E. Leukfeldt

Hacktivism is a rising phenomenon in the cyber landscape combining elements of the hacking subculture with ideologically motivated agendas inspired both by traditional activism and by new elements of the digital culture. Despite several studies on the topic, it is still not completely clear what motivates an individual to engage in this type of collective action and if the reasons can be compared to what is already known for more traditional forms of social protests. Taking a socio-psychological approach, this study uses the social identity model of collective action (SIMCA) as a theoretical lens to analyze hacktivists’ motives and engagement process. The analysis is based on 28 semi-structured interviews, and it considers the four main elements of the model, naming: morality, social identity, perceived injustice and perceived efficacy. The violation of moral values seems to be the main trigger to participate in the action, while social identity plays an important role both as the second step in the engagement process and as a bridge with the other elements of the model. The results seem to be in line with what is already known for other forms of social protests, although some elements of the model provide new means of interpretation.

JOURNAL OF CRIME AND JUSTICE 2024, VOL. 47, NO. 4, 511–529

Aims

This review seeks to synthesise existing research on transnational mechanisms and processes to provide insights into the factors that shape protest-extremism dynamics to address the following primary research questions::

1. What increases the vulnerability of protest mobilisations to transnational actors (states, violent movements, individuals) promoting violence across borders?

2. What factors constrain the potential for violence, radicalisation, and terrorism in transnational social movements/ mobilisations?

3. Under what conditions do alliances between social movements and international actors lead to an increased potential for violence? What characteristics of both types of actors contribute to this dynamic?

4. What are the mechanisms of influence between transnational and local protest mobilisations?

Methodology 

This research uses a rapid evidence assessment (REA) approach, synthesising knowledge on specific topics in line with the research questions from published journal articles, book chapters, reports, and dissertations, including both academic and “grey” literature (e.g., government and think tank reports).

The REA adopted a streamlined methodology using keyword searches of major social science databases, after which identified documents were screened for inclusion based on pre-determined eligibility criteria.

Key findings 

The literature on both transnational protests and transnational interactions with local movements or protests does not significantly differ from the core findings of the previous two Rapid Evidence Assessments in this series which focused on social movement insights into violent protests (Salman, Marsden, Lewis, 2025) and interdisciplinary research into individual-level processes that shape radicalisation and violence related to protests (Peterscheck, Marsden & Salman, 2025). Earlier findings that remain highly relevant to transnational processes include:

• Movement schism and fragmentation may increase potential for violence.

• Exposure to misinformation influences protest dynamics in ways which can increase the danger of violent escalation.

• The potential for counter-messaging to be counter-productive by producing unintended effects like reinforcing commitment to pre-existing positions, enhancing grievances like perceived discrimination, and reinforcing identities.

• Digital platforms play a role in forging collective identities, including or especially transnational ones.

• Fringe political movements are associated with increased acceptance of political violence.

• Identity fusion, especially in relation to perceived threats against a group, increases the salience of group identity and individual commitment to actions in support or defence of the group, even at cost to the individual.

• Perceptions of existential threats, discrimination, collective angst, and shared grievances can intensify group identity.

The social movement literature has developed a significant body of work on transnational movements. The key insights from the social movement and interdisciplinary literature on violence and protests also help to interpret cross-border influences. Transnational perspectives primarily add another layer of interaction, mutual influence, and opportunities for resource sharing and mobilisation. However, the mediating factors that influence contemporary social movement mobilisations, including new technology and the role of social media and their influence on violence have received less attention. This is particularly the case when violence is informed by local events and dynamics, but is influenced by transnational actors and processes. This suggests a broader gap to be filled by future research on the questions outlined in this report. 

London: CREST, The Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats , 2025. 48p.