Rating: 
Summary: More propagada.
Review: Here we go again.Like his first book in the series,"Dreadnought",this book is little more than a bunch of recycled anti-German British propaganda circa 1917.We are even treated to yet another retelling of how the u-boats caused the US to enter the war.What a joke.If you really want to know how and why the US entered the war,read Walter Karp's "The Politics Of War" instead of this worthless junk.
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Summary: Massie Can Still Do It!
Review: I am a huge fan of Robert K. Massie, and have enjoyed all of his books ("Nicholas and Alexandria" and "Dreadnought" were my favourites). This book shows all of the virtues of this very fine popular historian: fluent prose, well drawn individual portraits, absorbing anecdotes and skilful expositions of complex historical events. I particularly enjoyed his account of the naval campaign at Gallipoli, and his description of the Battle of Jutland ranks in my opinion (along with John Keegan's Jutland piece from "The Price of Admiralty) as the best short account of Jutland ever written. However, readers who are new to Massie should know what to expect: the book is written almost entirely from secondary sources and what he presents is an excellent synthesis rather than an original interpration; there is little new here. Minor quibbles: I wish the coverage of the German side had been more thorough, and perhaps Massie could have covered the Graf Spee chapters in fewer pages.
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Summary: A superb introduction to a fascinating subject.
Review: I have always believed that the First World War ranks as one of mankind's most tragic and unnecessary mistakes. This book does a fine job explaining at least a portion of how this tragedy came about, at least from the naval angle and perspective. This book has enough detail to satisfy experts, but is written in a fashion that the more casual reader with an interest in history will both enjoy and benefit from reading. This is indeed a fascinating look at an underexamined subject.Mr. Massie's basic thesis is that Germany's construction of a great war fleet (the misnamed "High Seas Fleet") was a disaster for the country. Kaiser Wilhelm appears to have caused his country to build this fleet for reasons of prestige and national pride. But to Britain the existence of the High Seas Fleet was a challenge to Britain's national survival, for Britain's domination of the seas, and prevention thereof by any possible hostile power, was not merely a matter of prestige or pride. It was life and death. By building a huge fleet at immense cost, Germany produced a dagger aimed at England's heart. As someone observed, without domination of the seas, England was finished as a power, but without domination of the seas, Germany remained the foremost European power by virtue of its army and position on the European continent. The existence of the German fleet at the onset of hostilities essentially guaranteed and necessitated England's entry into the Great War on the allied side. Once Germany began waging the war at sea--a war it did not really need to fight--this guaranteed eventual American entry into the war, which in turn inevitably tipped the balance against her. Seen from this perspective, the construction of her fleet was a strategic disaster for Germany. The book is interesting for both its narrative and insight into the famous sea battles of the war, as well as for its discussion of great naval leaders. The reader will learn about admirals Jellicoe and Beatty, men who became legends in their own lifetimes. While most of us are familiar with Winston Churchill's later career as Britain's great war leader in the Second World War, many readers will be delighted to learn about Churchill's pivotal role in the First World War. The author's insights here are fascinating and controversial, but to me ring true. Although this book has perhaps more detail than non-specialists necessarily want or need, it is a relatively easy read due to the author's clear, crisp style of writing, and his interesting look at not just the facts, but also the personalities, of the naval aspect of the great war. For readers interested in learning about both the causes of the great war, and the battles at sea that comprised it, this is the book to read.
Rating:
Summary: Very interesting
Review: I have to say this book is another success of the author.His "Dreadnaught" is one of the best books I've read.
Anyone who is interested in the history of sea power and the world war may regard this book as one of those best on this topic.
A "must-have".
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Summary: Great hiSTORY
Review: I read DREADNOUGHT by cahance a few years ago, and Peter the Great 12 years ago. Robert Massie writes about history. He tells a story, shines a light on individauls and illuminates an age,era or season. I have enjoyed his writing and his story telling for years, and this particular book greatly. Just how exciting can a ship chasing another be? With Massie, it is an encounter of persons and an age, it is not just the ships, but the ideas that made the ships, the ideals that forged them and the men that commanded and sailed them to that moment in time when the two ships met. An amazing and enjoyable read!
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Summary: Massie Does It Again
Review: I read this book because Dreadnought was excellent. I read Dreadnought because Nicholas & Alexandra was excellent. I read Nicholas & Alexandra because Peter the Great was excellent. None of these were historical periods I was particularly interested in, but Massie makes them interesting. He brings these people to life. Now I REALLY understand what Churchill meant when he said "Jellicoe was the only man who could lose the war in an afternoon". And then there is German Chancellor Bethman-Hollweg, not merely a mouthpiece for the German military, but a man who seemed to be the only one in Berlin who understood the consequences of unrestricted submarine warfare. If you have only a casual interest in World War I and you've never hear of either of these men, read this book. One more thing: Castles of Steel stands alone. It's been years since I read Dreadnought. You need not read the latter to enjoy the former, but enjoying the former will probably lead to reading the latter.
Rating:
Summary: A Premier Reading Experience
Review: I wish I could take all the five-star reviews I have written and change them to four star reviews, so that I could adequately express how great a book this is. There is not a bad chapter in the book, and I read it more avidly than any book I can remember. The accounts of the sea battles--Coronel, Falkland Islands, Helgoland Bight, Dogger Bank, Jutland,--are very well-done and make those events clearer to us than to the people who fought them. This is a sheerly stupendous work and anyone who has any interesst in World War One will be thankful he or she has lived to be able to read it. The only mistake I noted is that he refers to "Senator Williams of Tennessee" when he means "Senator Williams of Mississippi." Other than that one mistake this is a perfect book and is I am sure the winner of my "Best Book Read Award" for this year.
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Summary: A compelling history of the Great War at sea
Review: I would think that anyone who read and liked Robert Massie's "Dreadnought" should appreciate his new "Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea". As in the earlier book, although the ships and navies of the two rival nations are always at center stage, it is the people who built those ships and directed their activities and operated them and - in this book - fought them that really make the text vivid. And what personalities! Winston Churchill, the extraordinary Jacky Fisher who was the true father of the Dreadnought-type battleships that defined the era, the glamorous Admiral David Beatty who captivated the British public, Kaiser Wilhelm, Admiral Franz von Hipper ... If anything, the narrative in "Castles of Steel" is even more compelling than that of the first book because it deals with the drama and chaos of World War One itself. Massie's narrative lucidly explains the course of the naval war from the very opening days until the German High Seas Fleet scuttled itself after the conclusion of hostilities to prevent its delivery to its enemies. Along the way, several complex, controversial episodes are examined, including the disastrous Gallipoli Campaign and the Battle of Jutland, the great clash of battle fleets towards which decades of naval technical development had been aimed. Massie does not shy away from exploring the bitter in-fighting that erupted after the guns of battle had fallen silent, and he appears to present the arguments on both sides of controversies fairly. Although his portrait of Winston Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty is as an ambitious politician whose directives sometimes seeded chaos rather than order, Massie by no means holds Churchill solely or perhaps even chiefly responsible for the Gallipoli debacle. The admirals and generals on the spot are shown to have repeatedly erred and provided London with faulty advice. With Jutland, Massie's basic sympathy is clearly with the quiet, somewhat cautious Jellicoe rather than with his flamboyant subordinate, David Beatty, who according to Massie later did much to rob Jellicoe of deserved credit while evading blame for his own errors. Although the great dreadnoughts and battle cruisers - the "castles of steel" of the title - are never far from the main narrative thrust, U-boat warfare and diplomatic maneuvering (and the politics of the British Admiralty) are given their due. Although a long book at over 800 pages, "Castles of Steel" is nonetheless a powerful, fast-moving history of naval warfare as it emerged into the modern era of steel and radio.
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Summary: As good as history gets
Review: I'll have to begin by agreeing with the prior reviewer, who termed this book "thoroughly magnificent." It is all that and more. As a WWII buff, I'd always meant to read more about the prior war but didn't do so until a review of CASTLES OF STEEL caught my eye. It's author has a writing style that makes reading easy and enjoyable. This is what I call a "fireplace book" because one can just sit and read for hours on end. The only other historian to have that effect on me is William Manchester. I probably should've read DREADNOUGHT first but I'm definitely going to read it now.
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Summary: Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the G
Review: In this intriguing work, Massie, Pulitzer Prize winner for Peter the Great, continues the thread of his Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War (1991). Drawing on excerpts from official sources, contemporary accounts, and personal memoirs, the author vividly and clearly chronicles the action between the British and German navies during 1914-18, offering his analysis of the period's various battles, ships, policies, and commanders. The titular "castles of steel" are battleships, which were seen at the time as the prime factor in the naval balance of power, although the Germans would have been better off putting more effort into submarine warfare against British supply lines. Including good notes and bibliography, it is suitable for all public and academic collections, especially those that do not have Richard Hough's The Great War at Sea.
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