The exhibition, “The World at War, 1914–1918,” marks the centenary of the start of World War I. Once thought to be "the war to end war," such naïve optimism was quickly shattered by the experience of civilian and soldier thrust into the shared horror of industrial warfare. The war lasted four long years and killed ten million servicemen.

Drawing on the Ransom Center's extensive cultural collections, this exhibition illuminates the experience of the war from the point of view of its participants and observers, preserved for a twenty-first-century generation through letters, drafts, and diaries; memoirs and novels; photographs and works produced by battlefield artists; and propaganda posters and films.