The First World War

Rating:
Summary: Good breadth, touching on all theatres of the war
Review: World War I may have been the most important war in history, certainly the most of the last three to four hundred years. Old political systems were destroyed and new ones created, entirely new forms of warfare were introduced, etc. Thus, a great many books have been written on the subject. John Keegan is well known to military historians, and in fact most armchair historians as well, and has applied his keen mind and easy-to-read style to this event with his usual high standards.

What I most like about this book is its breadth. Instead of the standard cursory lip-service to the secondary theatres of operation, the entire war is covered, including Turkey's battles in Egypt and the Caucuses, Rumania's beating, and the Austro-Italian conflict. He also covers the major battles, of course, including Verdun, Tannenburg, Arras, etc.

The first hundred pages or so are not up to the standard of the rest of the book - here the cursory overview is detrimental, especially when compared to Tuchman's Guns of August, for instance. However, once the war starts, it is an excellent read. Keegan chooses to focus on the strategic direction of the war, sacrificing some tactical and political detail as a result. This is an advantage, in my opinion - the narrative moves quickly and is more readable as a result.

Some have complained about the lack of maps. I found the number adequate, if not always well placed. Most of the time, place names and details of battles are not important, especially in the Western Front - same battle, different place is the common theme. Having said that, it is a little annoying when towns are specifically mentioned in the text but not placed on the corresponding map.

Overall, an excellent look at the First World War. Highly recommended if you are interested in the course of the war itself rather than its underlying causes or repercussions.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: I have no doubt that Keegan is an authority on this subject. I felt that he failed to realise that readers may not have his encyclopedic knowledge of the First World War. There are constant references to battles and troop movements but no supporting maps & diagrams, the result was that the subject failed to come alive and I couldn't really get involved in the book.

This is a shame as Keegan is an excellent journalist and makes his points clearly and quickly in the medium of the newspaper.

Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Overview of the War
Review: The First World War by John Keegan will give the novice on World War I history a wonderful overview but will also be a thrill to those obsessed with this period as the author is unafraid of making his opinions loudly and, sometimes, gloriously known and will often challenge established ideas. This reader can sometimes get a little lost in the details of battles but the author is quite able at making these skirmishes clear and understandable (even if my head did swim a little still). The book covers more than battles, though, as personalities and politics become an important part of the mixture and the author clearly presents the impact of the evetns on the countries participating. The author is a historian with an edge and the skill to get away with it. This books should be enjoyed by anyone who wants to learn about this horrific war or those who want a fresh look at old arguments. A marvelous read.

Rating:
Summary: Single best book I've read about WWI
Review: Clear, concise and entertaining. Keegan is my favorite historian because he can explain complex ideas and situations without sacrificing excellent prose, nor falling into absurd academia.

Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive but very dense
Review: There is wonderful detail in this work but for me, as a casual reader, it was a little too dense and academic. As other reviewers have mentioned, the maps provided are too few and somewhat confusing. Additionally, Keegan's accounts of individual fighting units need more context and explanation for the beginning armchair historian. Keegan assumes his reader already has a working knowledge of warfare generally and the Great War in particular. If this is your first book about WWI, perhaps you should chose another one to familiarize yourself with the basics - then choose Keegan to deepen your understanding.

Rating:
Summary: A truly thoughtful work on the Great War
Review: There are two problems with much of the writing about WWI in the latter half of the 20th century: 1. It is frequently considered through the lens of WWII, which, while understandable, does nothing to enhance our understanidng of WWI and 2. It is frequently misunderstood just how much technology changed between the wars, and how that lack of technology impacted WWI.

In this wonderful work, Keegan avoids both of those pitfalls. In regards to the former issue, the work stands alone; World War One is considered in the context of its own historical period, and biases from WWII are non-existant. Whatever crimes the Germans may have committed in the 1930's and 40's, they have no bearing on this work.

In regards to the second issue, Keegan captures what is perhaps the greatest tragedy of WWI. Most people assume that it was just a slugfest, with no creative tactics being employed by either side. That is only true in part, however, because that impasse we all know so well was only arrived at as a result of tactics that were more advanced than the technology of the time. In fact, the entire German strategy was based around a massive flanking maneuver that was impossible to execute without significant motorized transportation that simply was not available on that time. Moreover, he goes on to point out how what was essentially 19th century communication was being used on battlefields the dwarfed those of the preceeding century.

Ultimately, "The First World War" is a thorough, superbly researched work on WWI. Keegan does an excellent job of capturing the politics of the day, and then drags the reader through the muck and horror of the trenches. It is devoid of both bias from WWII and the technological arrogance of our day. It is a remarkably even-handed work, and bodes well for the future of study of the Great War.

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Summary: The First World War-A Mystery
Review: Professor Keegan writes in one of his prior books, The Face of Battle,about what is and what is not "good" military history. His analysis deals with matters such as the "rhetoric of battle history", decisive battle works and other approaches to military history. It also explains the approach taken here.Consistently this book has no decisive battle theme, does not present the good fighting generals nor does it seek to satisfy the reader by merciless criticism of the incompetent and/or evil.What is difficult for Keegan in writing this history is that he is frustrated by the fact that he cannot find even a single rational reason for the war to have occurred.It is a mistake and a waste.The "finger on the button" threat of nuclear strategy had its analog "...in the mechanism of abstract war plans..." in 1914. Keegan cannot understand how the then existing social institutions failed to prevent the button being pushed.This work reflects the opinion that this unnecessary war of irrational and undefined origins was naturally reduced to a hideous war of attricion whose most memorable quality was the humanity retained by many of those who fought it.

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Summary: The First World War made Clear and Readable
Review: When you consider how confusing and complicated WW1 is to learn about and grasp mentally, it certainly takes a great historian and writer to make it exciting and readable. I picked up this book because I'd always wanted to no about the war in greater detail. I was hoping to read a condensed history that told the human and political side to the war, so I could understand what it was like for my great grandfather to fight in France and nearly loose his leg to shrapnel. This book however, bases itself on the political situations and conflicts between rulers and governments. Though Keagan sometimes recalls qoutes from soldiers and whitnessess, the majority of information is from a broader perspective. Don't get me wrong- this is still a great book. The sheer numbers of casualties and wounded will astound you, and all the more when you realize the motives behind the war's atrocities. Keagan goes into great detail explaining how such horrible things actually happened, and makes great comments on how the seeds plnted in the first war led to the armeggedon of the second. If you always wanted to know more about WW1, this book is a good place to start. It will give you the skeleton framework you'll need to greater understand the war that shaped the 20th century and life today as we know it. However, read expecting to learn about the war from a political side, and save the personal accounts that make the war real to another book.

Rating:
Summary: Good narrative of events
Review: This book succeeds at giving a blow by blow account of the war and the particulars of the battles and the sheer numbers of casualties. We are given exact figures on the numbers of men, guns, shells, bombs and other weapons each country had at their disposal. Keegan succeeds at giving us a narrative of what happened, but I found at times this became somewhat tiresome and I longed for more insight into events. Perhaps I thought Keegan would speculate a bit more and come up with some interesting theories. He doesn't. I would have welcomed a more detailed introduction to why and how the war started and I certainly think Keegan short changes the contribution made by the Americans in the war. Granted, American entered the war relatively late, but Keegan gives very little space to this aspect of the war. So, overall a nice and tidy one volume account of the war which is very readable and interesting but not groundbreaking by any means.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful Account of an Appalling Story
Review: Like most military histories, this account of the First World War contains too few maps and far too many names for anyone not already well-versed in the story to follow it with a great deal of precision. Adding to the book's difficulty is Professor Keegan's proclivity for involved sentence structure and ambiguous syntax. Nonetheless, he writes from an encyclopedic knowledge and a passion for his subject that burns through much of this and creates a powerful narrative. In the modern historical memory, the so-called "Great War" has acquired comic-opera overtones. But what might have started as comic-opera soon mutated, like a bad dream, into something more akin to the disgustingly violent surrealism and absurdism that the aftermath of the war in fact give rise to later in the literary and artistic culture of Europe. Prior to 1914, the monarchs and diplomats saw their continent as a grand chessboard, but soon after the opening sallies, they found themselves trapped in a most ungentlemanly game where nobody knew the rules. The technology for killing had reached state-of-the art effectiveness, while at the same time it was to prove impotent against the overwhelming defensive tactics of trench warfare. The result was a nightmarish stalemate in which every nation poured one class of young men after another into the meat grinder, which churned lustily away without moving the battle lines appreciably. By 1917, all the armies and several of the governments had reached exhaustion and were beginning to disintegrate. Enter the Americans, who while not having decisive military prowess at the time, did bring enough vitality and resources to bear finally to tip the balance. Having read this gloomy account, it's easy to see why WWI resolved nothing and why it was all to start over again in even an more virulent form twenty years later. What a century! With a fine eye for tactical detail, Professor Keegan writes more like a military practitioner than an academic historian. While I found his book difficult and grim, it's enlightening, and I recommend it.