First World War landscapes

The approach to the landscapes left behind by the First World War is by its very nature multidisciplinary. The collective imagination can easily picture lunar battlefields, ruined villages and trenches several miles long, but history, geography, archaeology, geology, the environmental sciences and the arts must be brought into play to properly grasp the diversity and complexity of those landscapes. Behind the issues linked to reconstruction and tourism addressed in the first and last sections of this issue lie other questions relating to how certain actors perceive the landscapes of the Great War. They become a poetic journey in the pen of Maurice Genevoix, an innovative excavation site for the archaeologist or an inexhaustible fount of creativity for the photographer. This section seeks to shed light on the singularity of the landscapes shaped by the First World War, which were a considerable source of inspiration to contemporaries and continue to resonate today with scientists in all fields.