The Guns of August
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This book is a highly readable account of the beginning of World War One. Tuchman brings to life the tumultuous and tenuous state of Europe in 1914 which erupted into the "Great War". I do recommend reading this book with Geoffrey Wawro's excellent short history of the Franco-Prussian War(the war that preceeded WW1) for a better historical perspective.
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History written as a novel
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This is a fascinating and highly readable book. Tuchman creates her characters very fully, the plot is fast moving and well structured, the scenes well drawn. This would be a good novel except that it's history! A frightening essay in how politicians and generals can get it terribly wrong. Whether or not you agree with Tuchman's conclusion that what happened between mid-August and mid-September 1914 set the direction of world history for the rest of the century, she makes a formidable case. Anyone interested in history or politics should read this book.
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The best!
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Rightly considered one of the greatest books on the beginning of World War I, this book won Barbara Tuchman (1912-89) her first Pulitzer Prize. Beginning with the funeral of the British King, Edward VII (1841-1910), the author unfolds European events that led to the Great War and shows how it happened and why. Containing many black-and-white pictures, the storytelling is handled in a wonderfully engrossing manner, almost reading like a novel. The story continues, with all of its horrible mistakes and miscalculations, to the Battle of the Marne, which stopped the German march to Paris. Overall, I found this to be a great history book, certainly the best I have ever read on World War I. It's easy to see why this book is so respected. Indeed, I believe that for many generations into the future, this book will be considered a classic on that war. So, if you are interested in the First World War, and want to read a great book on it, then I highly recommend this book to you. I give it my highest recommendations.
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The best!
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Rightly considered one of the greatest books on the beginning of World War I, this book won Barbara Tuchman (1912-89) her first Pulitzer Prize. Beginning with the funeral of the British King, Edward VII (1841-1910), the author unfolds European events that led to the Great War and shows how it happened and why. Containing many black-and-white pictures, the storytelling is handled in a wonderfully engrossing manner, almost reading like a novel. The story continues, with all of its horrible mistakes and miscalculations, to the Battle of the Marne, which stopped the German march to Paris. Overall, I found this to be a great history book, certainly the best I have ever read on World War I. It's easy to see why this book is so respected. Indeed, I believe that for many generations into the future, this book will be considered a classic on that war. So, if you are interested in the First World War, and want to read a great book on it, then I highly recommend this book to you. I give it my highest recommendations.
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A magnificent book
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Like another review I stumbled across this book having read Robert Kennedy's account of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 13 Days. JFK was reading The Guns of August at the time (it being published in 1962/63). Having read both one can see why JFK 'recommended' it. With remarkable yet accessible detail Tuchman constructs the events leading up to the outbreak of War and the chaotic first month. Where she succeeds (to my ill educated view) is in capturing the political and geopolitical issues surrounding the decisions to go to War- the Gronau's dash to include Turkey on the Axis side, the school playground posturing of the then Superpowers, the French persuading Russia to mobilise despite the latter being hopelessly ill prepared for operations. Writing about war should never be a trivialised undertaking and Tuchman triumphs in the information delivery and tone of her writing. It reads like a novel but the final pages, listing the abominable waste of life brings stark and saddening reality crashing home. I think JFK saw how possible it would have been to bring the world to war- as in 1914 and how escalation follows escalation until there is no other option available. It is fitting that the seminal BBC documentary series The Great War was, in part, inspired by this book.
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