Rating: 
Summary: Good on military details, poor on the root causes of the war
Review: If you wish a chronicle of military events with judgements on the personalities and decisions of the generals, this is a good book. If you want to know why European society engaged in massive self-destruction, you will not find much insight. Barbara Tuchman's Guns of August is a better read on the immediate origins of the war, and Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front is still the best portrayal of its spirit.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty deep stuff but enlightening
Review: I'll readily admit that reading good war novels like War of the Rats or The Triumph & the Glory or Gods and Generals is easier than wading through serious history, but the effort is worth it with John Keegan's books. He has a grasp of the human element in conflict as well as a manner of presenting the political and social aspects of the era in question that render the topic, if not as fascinating as a Grisham thriller, at least interesting enough to pursue. One always learns some lessons from Keegan--lessons that were won at a horrific price by the generation in question.
Rating:
Summary: Great Read But Needs More Maps
Review: I basically concur with most of the other reviews offered so far: Keegan's WW1 is a great read but the book definitely needs more maps. I found it very difficult (and frustrating) to follow Keegan's detailed accounts of critical battles without the aid of equally detailed maps. Still, the book is a wonderful read. This was my first foray into WW1 history and it has inspired me to read more. As usual, Keegan does a wonderful job of tying together the intricate details of combat with the societal and technological trends influencing the circumstances surrounding battle and its outcome. It seems to me WW1 would be great introduction to Keegan for the uninitiated. I definitely regard him as a must read for anyone remotely interested in military history. I would also recommend "Fields of Battle," which offers interesting insight into France's influence on North American history as well as a refreshing foreign perspective on the American Civil War.
Rating:
Summary: Easy reading with great anecdotes and explanations
Review: Keegan brings out little details relating more to the reasoning than the rationality of why battles were fought and mens lives wasted. His explanations of the courseness of the generals to the fighting man are remarkable for their candidness. The only failure of the book I find to be the maps... in many places they are missing the place names he refers to... and some have no scale... All in all a great read for those who want to understand the WHY and not the HOW.
Rating: 
Summary: The best "popular" history of the war yet written.
Review: Upon learning of this book, I couldn't imagine what even the incomparable Keegan thought he could add to the massive collection of writings on the Great War. I should have known better. Masterfully telling the complicated and heart-rending story of the war from his unique perspective as the world's leading military historian, Keegan weaves the eventful tapestry as no one else could. Particularly useful are his frequent summaries of where the combatants and their armies stood at various crucial times which provide the reader a much better sense of how and why subsequent events unfolded as they did. It is true that Keegan does not dwell on the causes of the war; for that story, try Niall Ferguson's recent and somewhat controversial "The Pity of War." Nor can he spend much time on the thoughts and feelings of the combatants (though he includes several carefully chosen soldiers' reminiscences); none better for that than Lynn Macdonald's series of "year" books, "1914", et al. What Keegan does do is provide even the knowledgeable reader with an amazingly fresh and insightful assessment of those four terrible years when the world turned upside down. Perhaps Keegan would agree that it is a book he could write only at this point in his long and incomparably distinguished career. It is Keegan at his mature and very best.
Rating:
Summary: Solid overview of the war
Review: Thin in places and admittedly very short on maps, John Keegan's latest still delivers a fairly thorough review of the bloody mess that was WW1. Whatever flaws it has are more than outnumbered by the good points in this clean and easy to read volume. To know WW1 from start to finish, read this book and Martin Gilbert's "The First World War" and "Atlas of World War 1", which should more than fill in the gaps. And yes, if you like novels, read a novel, because this history book isn't going to do it for the fictionally inclined.
Rating:
Summary: So the Generals Were Fools, or mad
Review: Keegan makes a persuasive case that the WW I Generals who became household names were fools, or mad . Oddly,Keegan has no new information on the men who ran the war. He looks back at the slaughter and rightly concludes that the leaders made a mess of the entire escapade, besides killing humongous millions for no sensible end . Great stuff. But Keegan now owes us an explanation of military leaders as a group. Are they all con artists, madmen or just incompetents?
Rating: 
Summary: what a disappointment.
Review: Not a good book to understand the suffering and pain carried by the generation of WWI. There is almost nothing in the personal experience of the little guys. Too much about armies and corps and divisions, not enought about people and soldiers. Not enought maps for the great number of unfamiliar locations. I want my money back!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent 1 volume history of WW1
Review: This is the first of Keegan's books I have read. I found it to be well written and an excellent overview of the war including the causes and aftermath of the conflict. The one issue I take with the book is with the maps. The book does a particularly poor job or integrating the maps with the text. Not being an expert on this war many place names were new to me. Invariably, the towns and rivers referred to in the text were nowhere to be found on the maps. This was the only frustration, however, in all other respects it was a very satifying read.
Rating:
Summary: Good history but lacks emotional impact
Review: I agree with the earlier reviewers who pointed out that historical fiction is a better forum for recreating the emotional trauma monstrous events like global war trigger. "The Triumph and the Glory" comes to mind, as does the great classic "All Quiet on the Western Front". Keegan of course is a world renowned military historian and cannot be expected to alter his fine histories to appeal to those of us who prefer fiction. HE IS good at what he does, and "The First World War" is definitive in describing the FACTS at hand. But world war is more than facts, it is raw visceral emotion unleashed to such an extent that mass killing is not only accepted as necessary but applauded as glorious. If Keegan could have addressed the WHY of WWI with the same skill he explored the factual context this would have been a five star book.
| 
