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Summary: could have been great....
Review: The arrogance of the author alienated me in chapter one...I couldn't read further....felt like I just wasted 5 minutes.
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Summary: few facts, lots of gloomy moods, no insights
Review: The author dislikes everything he sees in the countryside. To him France is basicly ugly, the people basicly retarded. Just when it becomes interesting the author changes the subject. No real descriptions of what he sees, only what he feels. WW I trivia loosely distributed throughout the book. The author has seemingly never laughed in his life. Not even 80 years after the war. This book is not a book about WW I, it is about a man in self therapy.
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Summary: Mixture of profundity and arrogance
Review: The author of this book understands--or at least grew to understand--the power of places. And he conveys that power thoughtfully and with occasionally wonderful prose. For these reasons, you should read this book. The problem with this book is that the author writes as though he alone possesses the wisdom and experience to divine the significance and meaning of these places. The characters (more properly charicatures) who dash across his pages--fishermen ("psychotic" onces, of course), familiies, students of history, tourists, locals--all seem to possess some psychological or emotional disability that (to the author) renders their interaction with the battlefields somehow trivial, or even comical. By book's end, therefore, the only character left standing who can fathom the depth and meaning of the places is the author. It is an astonishingly arrogant chronicle.
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Summary: A great subject but no sense of time, place or history
Review: The other two negative reviews have hit the nail perfectly on the head. Read them!And then read John Keegan's First World War. There's more depth and understanding in any ten pages of Keegan's book than in all of O'Shea's.
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Summary: A beautiful book on this subject
Review: This an unforgettable book. As someone who grew up in Northern France it shocks me to read the utter ignorance displaved in some self-appointed "historians" review's of this fine book. Mv homeland lives with legacy and daily memory of ahorrible war. Mr. O'Shea captures the land, my people, and the awful history hanging over the Western Front more eloquently than any "historian" I have ever read
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Summary: A Book I Will Never Forget
Review: This beautiful book is poetic, insightful, scholarly, and haunting. Thank God for writers of such compassion, intellect, learing, and literary talent. A book for the ages that should touch the hearts and souls of all thoughtful readers
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Summary: Book Of The Year
Review: This book has been selected by our panel of scholars as one of the three best First World One works of the year. Highly Recommended. First World War Orde
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Summary: O'Shea has done something I wanted to do, but now I don't.
Review: This book is a recording of the author's reaction to his journey along the front. This is not a history -- or a travelog -- but a personal evaluation. Readers who hold pacifist views seem to enjoy it while those who lean towards militarist values detest it. Last year I visited the Normandy beaches and the Allied and German cemetaries nearby. I saw the movie "Saving Private Ryan". My dad would never speak of his experiences in North Africa, Italy, and Southern France, but he would always mutter about "a bunch of foolishness" when I watched a war movie on television. I've read dozens of books of twentieth century history. In my middle-age,I've come to the conclusion that none of us can know the whole truth of these events. In the end, all we can do is try to develop a personal understanding that makes a little sense. O'Shea has developed his and I enjoyed reading his book while sticking to my own prejudices.
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Summary: Back to the Front
Review: This book is timely reading as this century draws to a close. As a baby-boomer interested in battle fields, I never thought WWI would be included in my list. It now is at the top, thanks to O'Shea's excellent writing. The anti military sentiments are perhaps extreme, yet thought provoking.
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Summary: Could have been a great book...
Review: This book is well written, but the arrogance and elitism of the author kept me from completely enjoying the read. His premise, to completely walk the Western Front of World War I is interesting, but he allows his extreme pacifist views to negatively color the events of that war. While the war was terrible, I have severe issues with statements the author makes such as "the only true heroes of the war are the mutineers" who refused to fight. This is a profoundly absurd statement, and completely insults the memory of the many brave men who died in the war. I don't recommend not reading the book, but be prepared that this statement and other similar ones will be encountered.
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