Emergency Powers and the Home Fronts in Britain and Germany during the First World War

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>The First World War was a ‘laboratory for the state of exception’. In almost all belligerents, governments enacted emergency laws to pursue their war efforts and suppress any opposition against the war. Industrial mass societies were governed under a permanent state of exception for the first time in modern history. Using Germany and Britain as examples, this book offers a comprehensive overview of these developments. It explains the political dynamics on the home fronts and the essential role of emergency powers, such as the British Defence of the Realm Act and the German state of siege, played during the war.</jats:p>