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Barbara T. This is the first book by Tuchman that I read. A fine combination that makes history come alive and jump off the page. has not only a gift for investigative reporting, a skill critical to historians, but has also a novelist's sense of storytelling. It was recommended to me by a close friend whose reading choices are full spectrum. I read it cover to cover non-stop.
The book was enjoyable - well written with the BIG exception that it is very one sided and the author's contempt for the German race comes out in full force here and there. I read the author's biography and noted she was jewish which may explain this slant. It wasn't deserving of a pultitzer prize at all. I just finished this book and enjoyed reading it EXCEPT when the author's very distinct anti-german sentiments come out in full force. She calls the germans many many names in this book and depicts them as just plain evil - evil.
Indeed there are a number of books out there that give great detail of some of the personailities involved. Truly magnificent research, excellent avoidance of bias, well crafted chronology and an excellent section of notes and annotations - this thing has the lot.Perhaps being from the US helped Tuchman avoid bias, perhaps she did it through an accountant like ability to winnow wheat from chaff.
From this book the reader should by all means explore the rest of the conflict based on the niche areas or specific aspects that interest them. Or maybe she was able to somehow block all the extraneous detail out of her mind when writing this because rarely have I encountered a book that pounds the reader with interesting snippets and a preponderance of detail yet weave it into the sort of book you don't slog through, no, but the sort of book you fly through despite it being a heavy read, if you take my meaning.If ever a person asks me what book they should read to give them understanding of World War I from now on I will reply 'The Guns of August'.
Sure, there are books that cover wider areas of the war. it's hard to think of anything more to say than what is contained in this deservedly award winning book.
But for a primer, look no further. Certainly there are works that deal with niche campaigns.
But really, when it comes to covering the lead up to the first world war and the first couple of months of fighting.
Full of interesting details, like what it was like to be near a siege gun, how early efforts to stop the war failed, the French love of their red uniforms independent of their camouflage value, and others. There were interchangeable pictures of similar-looking old generals, but none of armaments and geography, which would have been more informative.
Sometimes this mass of detail became numbing and tedious.The book is a little weak on the specific dynamics of how the assassination of Ferdinand actually led to war, this is covered in about half a page.(By the way, I once read a very interesting book on the causes of World War I that argued that it was simple the enormous complexity of the railroad mobilization schedules that made the machinery of war, once started, impossible to revoke. Most problematic, there was simply too much detail, it was hard often to see any clear theme being drawn, like a pointillist version of a Pollack painting.
I picked up this book because Robert Kennedy, in his excellent "13 Days", said that his brother John had read it and relied on its information to make sure not to repeat some of the mistakes politicians made that precipitated World War I, notably a tendency to impute too much purposiveness and intentionality to acts that may have been due simply to miscommunication.This book's heady and enthralling prose paints naturalistic portrait of the causes and the fighting in World War I. There were not enough maps, and what maps there were (I had an old used hardcover copy) were very hard to read due to poor printing.
Unfortunately, I forget the name of that book).Despite its weaknesses, there was much that was fascinating here, and I recommend it. Focuses on the personalities of the generals and lead politicians, most of whom seem by modern standards somewhat eccentric.
There were several weaknesses, however.
A must for any WWI fan, any war fan, any fan of politics, or frankly anyone who wants a better understanding of how human nature and our complex world work. An excellent book, hard to put down and eloquently shows the amazing saga of the beginning of WWI.
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