The First World War

The First World War
Author :
Publisher : Vintage
Total Pages : 715
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780307831705
ISBN-13 : 0307831701
Rating : 4/5 (701 Downloads)

Book Synopsis The First World War by : John Keegan

Download or read book The First World War written by John Keegan and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-11-21 with total page 715 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The definitive account of the Great War from one of our most eminent military historians. "Elegantly written, clear, detailed, and omniscient.... Keegan is...perhaps the best military historian of our day." —The New York Times Book Review The First World War created the modern world. A conflict of unprecedented ferocity, it abruptly ended the relative peace and prosperity of the Victorian era, unleashing such demons of the twentieth century as mechanized warfare and mass death. It also helped to usher in the ideas that have shaped our times—modernism in the arts, new approaches to psychology and medicine, radical thoughts about economics and society—and in so doing shattered the faith in rationalism and liberalism that had prevailed in Europe since the Enlightenment. The First World War probes the mystery of how a civilization at the height of its achievement could have propelled itself into such a ruinous conflict and takes us behind the scenes of the negotiations among Europe's crowned heads (all of them related to one another by blood) and ministers, and their doomed efforts to defuse the crisis. Keegan reveals how, by an astonishing failure of diplomacy and communication, a bilateral dispute grew to engulf an entire continent. But the heart of Keegan's superb narrative is, of course, his analysis of the military conflict. With unequalled authority and insight, he recreates the nightmarish engagements whose names have become legend—Verdun, the Somme and Gallipoli among them—and sheds new light on the strategies and tactics employed, particularly the contributions of geography and technology. No less central to Keegan's account is the human aspect. He acquaints us with the thoughts of the intriguing personalities who oversaw the tragically unnecessary catastrophe—from heads of state like Russia's hapless tsar, Nicholas II, to renowned warmakers such as Haig, Hindenburg and Joffre. But Keegan reserves his most affecting personal sympathy for those whose individual efforts history has not recorded—"the anonymous millions, indistinguishably drab, undifferentially deprived of any scrap of the glories that by tradition made the life of the man-at-arms tolerable." By the end of the war, three great empires—the Austro-Hungarian, the Russian and the Ottoman—had collapsed. But as Keegan shows, the devastation ex-tended over the entirety of Europe, and still profoundly informs the politics and culture of the continent today. His brilliant, panoramic account of this vast and terrible conflict is destined to take its place among the classics of world history.


The First World War Related Books

The First World War
Language: en
Pages: 715
Authors: John Keegan
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2012-11-21 - Publisher: Vintage

GET EBOOK

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The definitive account of the Great War from one of our most eminent military historians. "Elegantly written, clear, detailed, and omnis
The First World War
Language: en
Pages: 161
Authors: Michael Howard
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2007-01-25 - Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

GET EBOOK

This Very Short Introduction provides a concise and insightful history of the Great War--from the state of Europe in 1914, to the role of the US, the collapse o
The Russian Origins of the First World War
Language: en
Pages: 345
Authors: Sean McMeekin
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2013-05-06 - Publisher: Harvard University Press

GET EBOOK

The catastrophe of the First World War, and the destruction, revolution, and enduring hostilities it wrought, make the issue of its origins a perennial puzzle.
The First World War
Language: en
Pages: 849
Authors: Martin Gilbert
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2014-06-05 - Publisher: Rosetta Books

GET EBOOK

“A stunning achievement of research and storytelling” that weaves together the major fronts of WWI into a single, sweeping narrative (Publishers Weekly, sta
The First World War Peace Settlements, 1919-1925
Language: en
Pages: 168
Authors: Erik Goldstein
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2013-10-11 - Publisher: Routledge

GET EBOOK

The First World War changed the face of Europe - two empires (the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire) collapsed in its wake and as a result many of