Rating: 
Summary: Detached and dull depiction of a great tragedy
Review: If you are looking for a descriptive, riveting, and involving depiction of the Great War in the style of Stephen Ambrose, Barbara Tuchman, or Ken Burns, this is NOT the book for you. Instead, the author serves up a tediously detailed and grindingly dull discussion of specific troop movements, battlefield maneuvers, and casualty numbers. Military historians may appreciate this approach, but it offers very little to the rest of us. Specifically:1. The pre-events and causes of the war are glossed over, except for a silly discussion of how difficult it is to send messages thousands of miles without telegraph or telephone. The reader is left wondering what, if anything, made this tragedy inevitable. 2. The maps are extremely poor. This is odd for a book that is little more than a description of geography and troop movements. In most cases, the national borders are not even indicated. Natural features discussed in such great detail in the text, such as rivers and mountains, are nowhere to be found on the maps. 3. Military terms and concepts are mentioned with no explanation. 4. The reader never sees the battles from the perspective of the trenches nor the home front. 5. The author trivializes the contribution of the American Expeditionary Force, dismissing the American soldiers as chipper chaps whose impact on the course of the war was merely psychological. 6. The book ends abruptly at the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. The author engages in little if any discussion of the war's aftermath and significance. 7. One final grating point is the writing style. The dry, leaden prose seems better suited to Victorian novels than to modern military history, and the British spellings (e.g., the all too frequent use of "judgement") are more than a little distracting.
Rating: 
Summary: A Good Book for Keegan
Review: I don't like Keegan's writing style. I won't not have even bought this book, except it was on sale and I wanted a book about this era. So, my expectations were low. With that said, the book was good. Good, not great. Keegan give a fair desciption of the times, the events, and the battles. He takes us from the Battle of the Frontiers, the invasion of France by German and of Germany by France, during the first six weeks of the war - to "unrestricted" submarine warfare, American entry's into the war, and Germany's eventual capitulation. If you have a solid military background, you will be in a better position to appreciate this work. For those of us, including me, whose military background or knowledge is more sparse, this work is a little dry. I think Keegan's work makes assumptions about your background knowledge which I don't have. In other words, since I don't understand some of his references or allusions, I don't understand the point he is making. In this manner, I think a comparision to Barbara Tuchman's work, The Guns of August, may be useful. Ms. Tuchman work refers to the Roman War with Carthage, the Germany-Roman battles, Russian military failures in Japan and many, many, other points in history. I knew some, but not all. However, when Ms. Tuchman introduces a topic, she explains it better. I understand, after her explanation, the connection to the topic and why it is referenced. Keegan, on the other hand, may reference something, usually military, which I don't understand. Since he will build on this point, everything that comes afterwards is a blur. For Keegan, however, he keeps these reference here to a minimum, so I could understand and enjoy most of this book. There isn't much new or insightful in this work, but it is a good primer if you want a book to give you a solid, but plain, accounting of the war. Of course, if you have a strong military background, you probably will enjoy it more. I don't, so I didn't, maybe you will. For most people, however, I don't think that this book will be well received, but I don't think it will be rejected. It is a fair book, that is all.
Rating:
Summary: I gave up after 140 pages
Review: After reading "D-Day" by Ambrose and "The Rise And Fall of the Third Reich" by Shirer, I was thoroughly looking forward to learning about World War I. I could not have been more disappointed. Keegan's obssession with minutia is simply overwhelming. The book relates virtually no anecdotal sense of what it was like for the soldiers fighting the battles. Instead, Keegan drones on and on with pages and pages of mind-numbing detail about the movement of this troop and that troop, etc. This book is more suited for teaching in a class on military history, rather than for the average person who wants to simply learn about the Great War and get a flavor for what is was like for the soldiers. I finally abandoned the effort after 140 pages.
Rating:
Summary: Too broad, too detailed, interesting nonetheless
Review: The book has its faults and strengths. First of all, don't buy it if you are interested in the American perspective of WWI. He treats US involvement almost as an afterthought and only when a few dozens pages remain in the book. Little discussion of US tactics, battles or theatre significance is included. Instead, America is simply the great relief that arrives when Europe has depleted her supply of sons. Moreover, the books is (predictably) written more from the British perspective with scant discussion of German politics or tactical adjustments. My biggest gripe with the book is that he would include maps, and then the discussions of the mapped battle would note a particularlly significant location or town - and his map would not include the town just discussed! Another fault, and perhaps and understandable one, is the large amount of time he spent on the details of the 1914 invasions and the positioning of the armies and individual unit action. The best part of the book is his description of Allied tactics and how they were unable to overcome the technological limits. The central tactical thesis is that the massive slaughter of WWI produced no results strategically because the machinery of war (machine guns, gas, artillery) had advanced to such a degree but technology did not yet provide devices to overcome them (radios, communications and armor being the chief among them). Hence, 18th century frontal assult tactics complete with flag signalling was running into rapid fire machine guns and trench fortressess. Thus, no army was every able to maintain acquired territory. The book is useful if you are looking for a very broad overview. Similar to Tuchman's, the Guns of August, he provides an excellent run up to war - describing how train timetables and their inflexibility trapped European leaders into war. For this reason alone, the book is worth reading. Just be prepared for some confusing and inadequately cartologically supported descriptions.
Rating: 
Summary: a must for starters
Review: This book is a very well written and comprehensive book about the causes and the battles of World War one on the Western as well as on the Eastern front. It is an excellent book for anyone who wants to start to learn about this war.
Rating:
Summary: Strong on battle strategy, but lacks personal touch
Review: Keegan does an excellent job in this book of explaining the battle strategy of the generals and leaders of the warring countries. For an overview of the war's battles and tactics, it is top notch. I grew frustrated, however, with a missing personal touch. For example, there were was very little coverage of the everyday life of a soldier in the battle, or what it was like to be in a trench. Still, it is worth reading. One other criticism I have is that the maps are poor. While Keegan does an excellent job of detailing battles around small villages and towns, theose same towns are nowhere to be seen on the maps in the book. I found myself using maps from other books to follow along with the reading. I'd reccomend this, but be aware of what you are getting.
Rating: 
Summary: A Tough Read, But Worthwhile
Review: Keegan's book is very good, but it takes determination to get through it. This was my first comprehensive look at World War One, so I was only vaguely familiar with the settings and personalities. The book is horribly short of maps, so it makes the prose difficult to put into perspective as strategy and tactics are laid out. And Keegan often bogs down the narrative with troop locations and movements. Many of the battles are set up with tremendous detail of battalion and division, more details than are required for a book of such broad scope. Having said those negative points, Keegan's foundation for the European mindset prior to the war, his explanation of the crisis at Sarajevo, and his representation of the armies going off to war in August 1914 are absolutely fantastic. It is when Keegan pulls back from the battles and explains the thoughts of the leaders, the soldiers, and the citizenry that he is at his best and most convincing. And on these points he deserves praise and admiration. It was a very good book, but a difficult read. I recommend it for those who are interested and can slog through some slow parts.
Rating:
Summary: Fine work
Review: Another fine work by this eminent historian.
Rating:
Summary: What else can be said
Review: If you need an introduction to the First World War, this is it. John Keegan tells the story and provides the facts. The book is very approachable, even if you're not a history nut. He seemed to spend just the right amount of space on each of the topics. He conveyed the horror of Gallipoli without taking up half the book. He conveyed the global sweep of the naval battles with getting lost in endless detail. He was able to communicate the human side of the war without turning it into a catalogue of dead poets (don't read Martin Gilbert's coverage of WWI unless you're a poetry major who is also into history). Buy the book. Read it.
Rating:
Summary: A Broad View of a Big Subject
Review: You have less than 500 pages to make some sense of the self destruction of Europe between 1914 and 1918. Where do you start? Where do you finish? How do you keep it all in perspective? Most of my reading around the Great War has been about particular and quite detailed parts - Ypers, the Somme, the German High Seas Fleet, Galipoli. The authors try to make sense of the bit upon which they are concentrating. The other parts are understandably ignored. Keegan trys to make sense of the lot and to tie it all up: - Why were the battles of the Western Front doomed to stalemate and attrittion? - Why did Lloyd George persist with Haig? - Why did the West support the White Russians when the Bolshevics were anti-German? - Why did an Indian Army regiment muntiny in Singapore in 1915? - Why, given the rates of attrition, did the war end in 1918? - Why was the Great War a prelude to the Second World War? Along with the big picture comes limited and pithy fine detail. Enough to give a flavour and to make the point. My main criticism is in the prose style. Long, multi clause sentences are not easy to read and are, in general, unnecessary. Perhaps a better editor is required for the next book. I must commend the bibleography to those who want more about any of the subject matter of the book. If you want a book to put it all in context or if you want the broad overview I recommend this one.
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