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First World War by John Keegan
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Reviews of First World War by John Keegan
Amazon.com
Despite the avalanche of books written about the First World War in
recent years, there have been comparatively few books that deliver a
comprehensive account of the war and its campaigns from start to finish.
The First World War fills the gap superbly. As readers familiar with
Keegan's previous books (including The
Second World War and Six
Armies
in Normandy) know, he's a historian of the old school. He has
no earth-shattering new theories to challenge the status quo, no
first-person accounts to tug on the emotions--what he does have, though,
is a gift for talking the lay person through the twists and turns of a
complex narrative in a way that is never less than accessible or engaging.
Keegan never tries to ram his learning down your throat. Where other
authors have struggled to explain how Britain could ever allow itself to
be
dragged into such a war in 1914, Keegan keeps his account practical.
The level of communications that we enjoy today just didn't exist then,
and so it was much harder to keep track of what was going on. By the
time a message had finally reached the person in question, the situation
may have changed out of all recognition. Keegan applies this same
"cock-up" theory of history to the rest of the war, principally the three
great disasters at Gallipoli, the Somme, and Passchendaele. The generals
didn't send all those troops to their deaths deliberately, Keegan argues;
they did it out of incompetence and ineptitude, and because they had no
idea of what was actually going on at the front.
While The First World War is not afraid to point the finger at those
generals who deserve it, even Keegan has to admit he doesn't have all the
answers. If it all seems so obviously futile and such a massive waste of
life
now, he asks, how could it have seemed worthwhile back then? Why did
so many people carry on, knowing they would die? Why, indeed. --John
Crace, Amazon.co.uk
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Book Description of First World War by John Keegan
The First World War created the modern world. A conflict of
unprecedented ferocity, it abruptly ended the relative peace and
prosperity of the Victorian era, unleashing such demons of the twentieth
century as mechanized warfare and mass death. It also helped to usher in
the ideas that have shaped our times--modernism in the arts, new
approaches to psychology and medicine, radical thoughts about
economics and society--and in so doing shattered the faith in rationalism
and liberalism that had prevailed in Europe since the Enlightenment. With
The First World War, John Keegan, one of our most eminent military
historians, fulfills a lifelong ambition to write the definitive account
of the
Great War for our generation.
Probing the mystery of how a civilization at the height of its achievement
could have propelled itself into such a ruinous conflict, Keegan takes
us
behind the scenes of the negotiations among Europe's crowned heads (all
of them related to one another by blood) and ministers, and their doomed
efforts to defuse the crisis. He reveals how, by an astonishing failure
of
diplomacy and communication, a bilateral dispute grew to engulf an entire
continent.
But the heart of Keegan's superb narrative is, of course, his analysis
of
the military conflict. With unequalled authority and insight, he recreates
the nightmarish engagements whose names have become
legend--Verdun, the Somme and Gallipoli among them--and sheds new
light on the strategies and tactics employed, particularly the contributions
of geography and technology. No less central to Keegan's account is the
human aspect. He acquaints us with the thoughts of the intriguing
personalities who oversaw the tragically unnecessary catastrophe--from
heads of state like Russia's hapless tsar, Nicholas II, to renowned
warmakers such as Haig, Hindenburg and Joffre. But Keegan reserves
his most affecting personal sympathy for those whose individual efforts
history has not recorded--"the anonymous millions, indistinguishably drab,
undifferentially deprived of any scrap of the glories that by tradition
made
the life of the man-at-arms tolerable."
By the end of the war, three great empires--the Austro-Hungarian, the
Russian and the Ottoman--had collapsed. But as Keegan shows, the
devastation ex-tended over the entirety of Europe, and still profoundly
informs the politics and culture of the continent today. His brilliant,
panoramic account of this vast and terrible conflict is destined to take
its
place among the classics of world history.
With 24 pages of photographs, 2 endpaper maps, and 15 maps in text
Synopsis of First World War by John Keegan
Keegan offers the definitive account of the war that created the modern
world, unleashing the terrors of mechanized warfare and mass death and
establishing the political fault lines that imperil European stability
to this
day. of photos. 17 maps.
Synopsis of First World War by John Keegan
Fulfilling a lifelong ambition, one of our most eminent military historians
gives listeners the definitive account of the Great War--the war that
created the modern world, unleashing the terrors of mechanized warfare
and mass death and establishing the political fault lines that imperil
European stability to this day. A magnificent achievement, destined to
become a classic. --This text refers to the audio
cassette edition of
this title
About the Author of First World War, John Keegan
John Keegan was for many years senior lecturer in military history at the
Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, and has been a fellow at Princeton
University and a professor of history at Vassar College. He is the author
of thirteen previous books, including the acclaimed The Face of Battle
and The Second World War. He lives in Wiltshire, England.
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First World War by John Keegan at Amazon by clicking here
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