For me, the study of this war (and other terrible things in human history) is about far more than military maneuvers or victories or defeats. I want to understand how and why people behave the way they do. I want to know them so I can know myself, and I want to avoid making the mistakes and judgment calls that led to an early demise for so many of my ancestors.

For this "war to end all wars" that resulted in more than 17 million deaths and 20 million injuries, I particularly want to understand how people can bring themselves and their societies to such lows of death and destruction. I want to understand how they survived those lows, how they resisted those lows, and how they showed humanity in the face of them.

It seems I've found a (mostly) kindred spirit in Dan Carlin, host of the long-form award-winning podcast Hardcore History and creator of the recent six-part World War One series "A Blueprint for Armageddon."