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 A British Statesman (Author), Graeme Newman (Introduction) Format: Kindle Edition

Targeting Civilians and the War in Flanders brings E. Alexander Powell’s gripping eyewitness account of the First World War into sharp contemporary focus, reframing one of the earliest narratives of the conflict through the lens of civilian suffering and the ethics of modern warfare.

Written in 1914 at the very outbreak of hostilities, Powell’s Fighting in Flanders remains one of the most immediate and vivid journalistic records of the German invasion of Belgium and the rapid, chaotic campaigns that swept across Flanders. As an American war correspondent moving with Allied forces, Powell witnessed firsthand the destruction of historic towns, the flight of refugees, and the transformation of peaceful European landscapes into scenes of devastation. His reporting captures not only the movement of armies, but the profound human cost borne by civilians caught in the path of industrial war.

This new Read-Me.Org edition, retitled Targeting Civilians and the War in Flanders, highlights a central and enduring theme in Powell’s work: the deliberate and incidental targeting of civilian populations during wartime. From the burning of Louvain to the mass displacement of Belgian families, Powell documents events that helped shape early international outrage and contributed to the evolving laws of war. His account stands at the intersection of journalism, moral witness, and wartime narrative—revealing how the First World War blurred the boundaries between combatant and non-combatant in ways that continue to resonate today.

Carefully prepared for modern readers, this edition preserves Powell’s powerful prose while offering a clean, accessible text suitable for contemporary publication standards. It is an essential volume for readers interested in World War I history, the origins of total war, and the enduring question of how civilians become targets in conflicts across time.

A compelling blend of reportage and historical insight, Targeting Civilians and the War in Flanders invites readers to revisit the opening chapter of the Great War—not as distant history, but as a warning that remains urgently relevant

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.143.

by Talbot Mundy (Author), Graeme Newman (Introduction)

Of Colonial Pride: When India Fought in Flanders presents a vivid and compelling account of one of the most overlooked chapters of the First World War—the arrival and service of Indian troops on the Western Front. Originally published as When India Came to Fight in Flanders, Talbot Mundy’s work brings readers directly into the early months of the war, when soldiers from across the Indian subcontinent were deployed to the muddy, mechanized battlefields of Belgium and northern France.

Blending frontline observation with narrative intensity, Mundy captures the shock, endurance, and courage of these men as they confronted a new kind of warfare far removed from their homeland. From trench conditions to battlefield engagements, the book offers a rare contemporary perspective on the experiences of Indian regiments who played a critical role in holding the line during some of the war’s most desperate moments.

This newly titled edition, Of Colonial Pride, invites modern readers to reconsider the story within its broader historical context. It highlights not only the bravery of Indian soldiers, but also the complex realities of empire, identity, and loyalty that shaped their service. Mundy’s account reflects the attitudes of his time—admiring, yet often filtered through the lens of imperial thinking—making this volume both a gripping wartime narrative and an important historical document.

For readers of military history, colonial studies, and World War I, this book offers a powerful and thought-provoking look at the global dimensions of the conflict. It stands as a testament to the contributions of Indian soldiers whose role in the war deserves far greater recognition.

This Read-Me.Org edition has been carefully prepared for contemporary audiences, preserving the original text while presenting it in a clear, accessible format for today’s reader.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.216..

by A British Statesman (Author), Graeme Newman (Introduction) Format: Kindle Edition

Behind every war lies a story not told in headlines, speeches, or patriotic slogans. How Diplomats Make War lifts the veil on the hidden machinery of international conflict, exposing the calculated maneuvers, secret agreements, and political intrigues that turn disputes into devastation.

Written in 1915 by an anonymous insider known only as “A British Statesman,” this remarkable work offers a rare, unflinching examination of the diplomatic system at the height of the First World War. Drawing on deep knowledge of European politics, the author dismantles the comforting myths that wars are fought for the people, revealing instead how they are engineered by a small circle of officials, financiers, and power brokers operating far from public scrutiny.

With sharp wit and devastating clarity, the book traces the role of treaties, alliances, and the so-called “balance of power” across a century of European history—from the aftermath of Napoleon to the crises that plunged the world into modern industrial warfare. It exposes how secrecy, propaganda, and the relentless expansion of armaments create a self-perpetuating cycle in which preparation for war becomes its very cause.

This new Read-Me.Org edition, edited and introduced by Graeme R. Newman, situates the text within both its historical moment and its continuing relevance. More than a century later, its insights remain strikingly contemporary, challenging readers to reconsider the relationship between governments, diplomacy, and the human cost of global conflict.

At once a historical document and a powerful critique of political power, How Diplomats Make War is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand not just why wars happen—but who truly makes them.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.257.

By  Nora Beauvais

This is the OECD’s fourth benchmarking report examining the policies and procedures related to terrorist and violent extremist content (TVEC) online, with a focus on transparency reporting, of the world’s top 50 most popular online content-sharing services (the “popular services”). Like the third edition, this report also covers the 50 online content-sharing services that terrorist and violent extremist groups and their supporters exploit or rely upon the most (the “intensive services”). The first three reports provided a benchmark against which this fourth report assesses relevant developments. Terrorist and violent extremist actors continually adapt their methods to technological developments. As governments and online platforms increasingly take measures to curb the dissemination of TVEC, terrorists and violent extremists make adjustments to avoid content moderation. On mainstream online platforms, for example, they have been developing tactics to evade automated detection tools. Meanwhile, sustained efforts by large platforms to combat TVEC have also caused a “displacement effect” whereby terrorists and violent extremists turn to alternatives (e.g. cloud platform websites, decentralised web technology, niche alt-platforms, and terrorist-operated websites). Transparency reporting on TVEC online is crucial to assess the evolution and magnitude of the threat, evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of online platforms’ policies and actions to tackle this problem, as well as their impact on human rights, and build an evidence base to support policymaking and regulatory frameworks. The key findings of this report are: 1. The popular and intensive services are more diverse, both ideologically and geographically. The TVEC landscape is multi-faceted, encompassing a wide range of ideologies, from terrorist groups to violent extremist political movements and lone actors, and it is spreading across different types of contentsharing services and geographical regions. For the first time in this report series, the popular services’ list includes a gaming service. This is noteworthy because gaming services are increasingly used by terrorist and violent extremist actors. In addition, three Indian platforms have joined this ranking. As for the intensive services’ list, it features a self-proclaimed anarchist website for the first time and covers a wider spectrum of geographic regions and languages.2. Overlap between the popular and intensive services remains low, highlighting the need to look at the TVEC landscape more comprehensively. Only ten services appear on both the popular and intensive lists, compared to 11 in the third benchmarking report. However, many policy discussions and responses still tend to focus on the largest platforms. Paired with the finding that the intensive services tend to be less transparent than the popular services (see below), the takeaway is that neglecting smaller but intensive services risks under-scrutinising or even turning a blind eye to a core part of the problem.3. The evidence shows mixed results regarding the clarity of the popular services popular services’ definitions of TVEC, while most of the intensive services’ still do not define or even expressly prohibit TVEC. On the one hand, the definitions related to TVEC in the popular services’ policies and procedures are, overall, clearer than in the previous report. Services are using more comprehensive descriptions of TVEC and related concepts, but new gaps among the services’ approaches have emerged, with a proportion of them still using vague terminology (18%) or having become less precise. On the other hand, 60% of the intensive services still do not define or explicitly prohibit TVEC, or they simply have not established any governing documents. 4. Transparency reporting on TVEC reveals new gaps among popular services and remains rare among intensive services. Seventeen of the popular services now issue transparency reports with specific information on TVEC, as compared to just five in the first edition, 11 in the second, and 15 in the third of this series. This represents the slowest year-to-year growth rate to date. For the first time in the series, one of the services (present on both the popular and the intensive services lists) that previously issued transparency reports with TVECspecific information ceased this practice. In addition, three of the four newest Services to issue transparency reports on TVEC provide very limited information, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Furthermore, there is still significant heterogeneity among the popular services’ reporting approaches, which continues to make data aggregation and cross-platform comparisons difficult, if not impossible. Among the intensive services, only six issue transparency reports on their policies and actions concerning TVEC, against 8 previously, and the vast majority (5 of 6) also appear in the popular services list. The scarcity in transparency reporting on TVEC among the intensive services may be explained by the fact that many of them are operated by terrorist and violent extremist groups and supporters, or by free speech “absolutists” who deliberately let TVEC flourish on their platforms. 5. Content moderation approaches continue to pose risks for privacy, freedom of expression and due process. Continuing a trend that began during the COVID-19 pandemic, popular services rely more heavily on automated tools to detect and remove TVEC, which has generally increased the removal of lawful content and unjustified censorship. Furthermore, half of the intensive services remain opaque regarding their approaches to content moderation; and most of them either have no notifications and appeal mechanisms in place, or do not provide any information in this regard. This raises questions regarding their efforts to ensure the respect of privacy, freedom of expression and due process.6. New online safety laws and regulations are creating an increasingly fragmented transparency reporting landscape. As new online safety laws and regulations come into force, content-sharing services are facing new obligations to issue transparency reports in multiple jurisdictions, and they face different reporting requirements in each of them. To conclude, this report highlights the need for more precision in the Services’ governing documents; more consistency in the metrics and methodologies used to prepare transparency reports; more transparency in their content moderation approaches; and more efforts to ensure due process and to safeguard human rights and fundamental freedoms.

By Mia Doolan,  Katie Cox,  Kiran M. Sarma

This is the protocol for a Campbell Systematic Review. This review will address two aims: (1) A qualitative synthesis ofliterature on the composition of online far right propaganda, and (2) A quantitative synthesis of literature examining the impactof exposure to online far‐right propaganda on audiences. These syntheses will be guided by the following specific objectives: (i)What is the content (i.e. themes) of online far‐right propaganda, and how does this differ across ideological subgroups? (ii) What is the structure of online far‐right propaganda, and how does this differ across ideological subgroups? (iii) What is the context ofthese messages (i.e., where, when and by whom were they posted?) (iv) What impact does exposure to online far‐rightpropaganda have on audiences with reference to the radicalisation of opinion and/or action.

Campbell Systematic Reviews Volume 21, Issue 4 Dec 2025

By Bibi van Ginkel, Tanya Mehra, Merlina Herbach, Julian Lanchès, and Yael Boerma

This study examines a pressing and highly topical challenge: how to assess online content that may undermine democracy, threaten national security and public safety, or infringe upon the rights of others—while safeguarding freedom of expression. The central question it explores, the specific challenges identified, and the recommendations it puts forward should not be viewed in a vacuum. Rather, they are situated within a broader and increasingly complex societal and political context. A range of systemic developments shapes the environment in which this work takes place: the rise of online radicalisation, particularly among children and young adults; the expanding influence of large technology platforms and the tensions this creates with rule-of-law-based democratic societies leading to a global trend toward both techno-libertarianism and techno-authoritarianism; and the evolving role of governments as they seek to reconcile the imperatives of security, safety, and national interest with those of privacy, human rights, and minority protection. These challenges are compounded by the unprecedented speed and scale of online information dissemination, growing concerns about disinformation and foreign influence, and the urgent need to strengthen societal resilience and media literacy. While this study does not address each of these systemic issues in depth, they form the essential backdrop against which its findings and proposals should be understood.

The Hague: The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT), 2025. 208p.

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.