The First World War

Rating:
Summary: uneven with publisher lapses
Review: Clearly, this takes the place of the Jan 17 inquiry already online. While this book has some very strong parts--in particular, the account of the lead-up to the war, the details on British military skills, and a discussion of the Gallipoli efforts--there are also a great many weaknesses. I was all ready to launch a detailed attack on the publisher for the totally inadequate maps, but many of the earlier reviewers have already noted this deplorable situation. In this time of sophisticated graphics, the maps in this book are an insult to the reader and a sad reflection on a publisher that used to be among the very top-of-the-line houses. The central portion of the book is particularly weak in narrative and in "production values." After the excellent introductory sequence, the actual battle scenes come across as an anticlimax. There is often a lack of clarity. And this is not a matter of being unfamiliar with a British style: about half the books I read are by British writers. Also, neither the author nor [perhaps, more importantly] the publisher seems to have heard of copy editing. It is possible that my disappointment over this book was affected by my admiration for the particularly effective narrative thrust of Antony Beevor's STALINGRAD. The writing in STAKINGRAD grabs the reader and just will not let go. And the maps go with the text.

Rating:
Summary: [see below]
Review: I apologize for using this form...I submitted a review of this book on or about 9 Jan 2000 and it has not yet appeared. Could you please let me know if it did not arrive or if there is some reason for not using it? Once I know the circumstances, I will either submit another reivew or let things drop. Thanks for your assistance. e-mail address is [e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: Dense History, Map Impaired
Review: Keegan is an academic historian, not a writer of popular history. Consequently this book is heavy on the big picture -- each movement of an army, identified by its commander, is detailed -- but not a lot of information or feeling about the rank and file. Little to nothing about civilians. In other words, this is a book about the men who had the trenches dug, and why they did so, not one about the people who dug the trenches and lived and died in them.

And, most disappointing, somebody decided maps weren't important. Whole chapters go by without any way to see what Keegan is talking about. Important battles are fought in cities that can't be found... months of fighting over unlocatable rivers. This is a history of the World of 80 years ago, of Imperial Europe, and it barely shows us where Poland was. If ever there were a book that needs an atlas, this was it. Really, really too bad.

Rating:
Summary: Technically Proficient, But Somewhat Difficult to Follow
Review: John Keegan's one volume narrative of the First World War is detailed, but hard to follow. I suppose a military historian would enjoy it more than others. My primary interests were the causes of the war, the geopolitical implications of the war, and the aftermath. Sadly, these areas were only glossed over in this book. The battles are covered very well, however, and I think it is a good source to have if studying this war.

Rating:
Summary: A real yawner
Review: Enough with the paucity of maps. Although I agree that this was certainly a shortcoming of this book, the greater concern is the dry, boring account of one of the most devastating wars in the history of mankind. Mr. Keegan's litany of names and places may be historically accurate, but gave little understanding of the human suffering that had to be an everyday occurrence. This book reincarnated all the boring moments spent in history classes taught by professors who almost destroyed any interest I had in history by focusing on names, dates, and numbers.

Also, it would have been nice if Mr. Keegan acknowledged the impact of the United States on the conclusion of this war. He seems to mention U.S.involvement almost as an afterthought and implies that our victories occurred because the Germans were already in retreat or because the vast numbers of fresh American troops discouraged the Germans. Although the United States did not enter the war until very late, surely its impact warranted more than approximately two paragraphs in a 427 page book. One wonders how over 100,000 American soldiers died in this war.

Rating:
Summary: Extremely disappointing, like the war itself
Review: Maybe I was expecting a definitive history of the War. Maybe I was expecting something more than a well-researched recital of battles and army statistics. Maybe I was expecting to learn something. But the book was a big disappointment.

First off, the editing was quite poor. On several occasions there are sentences that make no sense whatsoever. There are mislabeled maps and misspellings of simple words.

The maps themselves are pretty much useless. They should have some relevance to the accompanying text, usually they don't. For example, the text will talk about a battle by a town. You look on the map, the town is not there. There seems to be little attempt to make the book comprehensible to anybody but the biggest WWI scholars.

The main point of the book is that the war's origins are a mystery. Contrast that to The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchmann comes up with several reasons that were apparently ignored by Keegan.

The book does make a good point about how the war started out simply as a local conflict, Serbia vs. Austria-Hungary. While Keegan stresses that point, he flounders at what could have been done to avoid it.

Keegan avoids other issues, the unprecedented reliance on machines in this war, on the introduction of airplanes, of the widespread use of poison gas. There is little 1st-person documentation in the book either, contrary to the dust jacket, one fails to get an idea of "how it felt".

Ideally, the shortcomings of this book could have been masked by making it part of a multi-media package. A computer CD that would stress and visualize Keegan's points would have been a huge help.

In conclusion, the book reminded me of several classes I took in college. You would have a very learned teacher in front of the room. But knowledge itself does not make a good teacher, the ability to impart and transfer that knowledge makes the teacher good. Sorry, Mr. Keegan, you may be a wonderfully knowledgeable historian, but the book did not transfer that knowledge very well.

Howard Wexler

Rating:
Summary: A Competent, Intelligent Narrative Summary
Review: Keegan's work is a competent, intelligent and well-researched narrative summary of the War to End All Wars. Unfortunatly, it is also very dry reading. Also, even at the relatively superficial level of detail with which the war's great battles are outlined, there is a disappointing paucity of maps. As the author describes the movements of armies, corps and divisions here, there and everywhere relative to cities, rivers, lakes and other topographical features, the reader is left with an incomplete picture of the tactical situation. However, I liked the book enough to finish it, and was left with much greater degree of knowledge about the subject than I had when I started. A marginal "thumbs up".

Rating:
Summary: Review Addendum
Review: I reviewed this book previously and did not like it (see below). I just finished a competing volume, The Great War, by Spencer C. Tucker. The Tucker book is half as long and superior in all respects to Keegan's book. Readers searching for a good introduction to WWI should go to Tucker's book.

Rating:
Summary: Good Narrative, No Maps
Review: In my mind a comprehensive, factual explanation of the military aspects of The Great War. Keegan does not dwell excessively on the political aspects that contributed to the conflict, but he correctly points out that it need not have happened, and that the combatants were woefully unprepared to prosecute such a war. I would give it more stars, but for the glaring absence of adequate maps.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Well-done history of WWI and recommended to those who enjoy military history. Thoughtful, expertly told, and a must for anyone interested in this subject. Keegan is a master.