Poetry for Peace is a collaboration between the Rochester Oratorio Society and the University of Rochester Humanities Center focusing on a performance of Dona Nobis Pacem by Ralph Vaughan Williams. The performance take place on March 24th at 7:30pm at the Hochstein Performance Hall. In addition to the concert, there will be a series of events providing historical and cultural background into the music, the time period, the poetry and related topics, all offered free of charge and open to the public. You can find the full schedule of events online here. 
The Rochester Oratorio Society sent out this list of readings recommended by historians and librarians working with them on the project, to help those who might interested learn more World War I, its harbingers, and aftermath. Hyperlinks connect to the Monroe County Library System, where these volumes are widely available. Most are also available through other library holdings and sources such as Amazon. I'm grateful to them for giving us permission to share this reading list here on WXXI's website.
The Assassination of the Archduke: Sarajevo 1914 and the Romance that Changed the World
by Greg King (2013)
The Beauty and the Sorrow: An Intimate History of the First World War
by Peter Englund (2011)
Dark Invasion: 1915: Germany's Secret War and the Hunt for the First Terrorist Cell in America
by Howard Blum (2014)
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
by Erik Larson (2015)
Five Lieutenants: The Heartbreaking Story of Five Harvard Men Who Led America to Victory in World War I
by James Carl Nelson (2012)
Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle
by Fiona Carnarvon (2011)
The Last of the Doughboys: The Forgotten Generation and Their Forgotten World War
by Richard Ruben (2013)
Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East
by Scott Anderson (2013)
The Secret Rooms: A True Story of a Haunted Castle, a Plotting Duchess, and a Family Secret
by Catherine Bailey (2013)
The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914
by Christopher M. Clark (2013)
To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918
by Adam Hochschild (2011)
World War I: The Definitive Visual History: From Sarajevo to Versailles
by R. G. Grant (2014)
All Quiet on the Western Front (orig. Im Westen Nichts Neues)
as well as the incredible movie of the same (English) title.
By Erich Maria Remarque
The Real War, 1914-1918
By B.H. Liddell Hart
The Meaning of the First World War
By Réne Albrecht Carrié
A History of the First World War
By A.J.P. Taylor
The Defeat of Imperial Germany, 1917-1918
By Rod Paschall
Historic Documents of World War I
By Louis L. Snyder
The Origins of Modern Germany
By Geoffrey Barraclough
Imperial Germany: The Birth of the German Republic 1871-1918
By Arthur Rosenburg
A Mad Catastrophe
By Geoffrey Wawro
The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914
By Margaret MacMillan
The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931
By Adam Tooze (2015)
The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
By Barbara Tuchman (1996)
The Zimmermann Telegram
by Barbara W. Tuchman (1985)
The Guns of August
by Barbara W. Tuchman
The Price of Glory Verdun 1916
By Alistair Horne
No Man's Land 1918
By John Toland
Somme
By Lyn Macdonald
The world crisis 1911-1918
By Winston Churchill
The pity of war: Explaining WWI
By Niall Ferguson
Rites of spring: the great War and the birth of the modern age
By Modris Eksteins
