Charles Emmerson. 1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War. New York: PublicAffairs, 2013. Another case where a book seems an apposite purchase, given that it is about the year I'm currently researching. This one has generated a bit of buzz. It's certainly an interesting approach, providing snapshots of a couple of dozen major cities around the world (Melbourne gets half a chapter, paired with Winnipeg; London gets two chapters, framing the book). The danger is that 1914 will overshadow 1913, that dark foreboding will prevail throughout; but flipping through it seems the author has avoided this pitfall.
This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Terms and conditions beyond the scope of this license may be available at airminded.org.
Michael Portillo (formerly the British Tory Defence Minister) has just completed a series of 15-minute radio programmes on various aspects of 1913 in the UK (women, labour, etc). You can probably listen to them all here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b030l0kg
You can download them here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/r41913
Thanks! But Defence Minister? Surely he's better known as host of Things We Forgot To Remember…
We are trying very hard to remember him as anything other than a politician, but it's not working yet…
He's also been doing British train journeys informed by a Victorian travel guide:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_British_Railway_Journeys
And on the Continent, this time (appropriately for this post) the 1913 Bradshaw:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/journeysbyrail/9666339/Great-Continental-Railway-Journeys-Michael-Portillo-time-traveller.html