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Summary:
In this Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, historian Barbara Tuchman brings to life the people and events that led up to World War I. She reveals how and why the war started and why it could have been stopped, but wasn't.
Customer Reviews:
Average Customer Rating:
Well the writing is geat but so is the book...
Customer Rating:
Of course the writing is amazing but this edition is a wonderful possession. The book I bought (library binding) is great! Book is built like a tank, great binding, good paper, and an attractive cover and spine design. If you are gifting this book this is your edition, a really beautiful job by the book manufacturer to complement what is no doubt a truly remarkable book of the 21st century!
Guns of August is a classic
Customer Rating:
I had lost my copy of this book in an airport on a recent trip. I wanted another to finish reading and to keep for future reference. This book is a classic, along with The Proud Tower. I was glad to get it at a reduced price and via such prompt service.
Bob Dylan should read this book
Customer Rating:
In a song Bob Dylan wrote "The First World War it came and it went. The reason for fighting I never did get." I like Dylan, never understood how WWI grew out of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand; then I read The Guns of August. This book is the story of the incredible stupidity, miscalculations, ignorance, and arrogance, that lead to the death of twenty million people, by the rulers and politicians of Europe. In effect it tells how you get from the assassination of one man in Sarajevo to everyone in Europe killing each other, in little more than a month. War may be to important to leave to the generals, but peace seems to suffer at the hands of politicians. Barbra Tuchman,won a well deserved Pulitzer Prize for this book; which is easy to read, thoroughly researched, and well documented. She has been criticized for favoring various nations and individuals, You as the reader can judge this for yourself, but remember critics don't usually reference and footnote their comments. Another criticism of the book, it is more literature than history, why can't history be well written and interesting? This book covers an extremely complex period very well, it deserves more than five stars.
Good literature, mediocre history
Customer Rating:
First, I really enjoyed this book. I believe Tuchman did a masterful job of giving life to the people and events that led to WWI. This book is well worth reading, but only for what it is: half-history, half-literature.
This is not the place to start if you want to understand what led to WWI. The author does have a distinct anti-German bias that glosses over most of the complexities that influenced Germany's actions. Given when the book was written, this bias is understandable, but it does affect its historical value. Moreover, Serbia and the Hapsburgs are essentially footnotes in this book when in reality, they are essential for understanding the causes of the war. When you ignore Serbia and Austro-Hungary, well, all you're left with is Germany acting like a belligerent punk under the hand of the man-child Wilhelm II.
Also, Tuchman definitely prefers some individuals over others. For example, she gives Sir French pretty short-shrift in comparison to Lord Kitchener when in reality, there was more than enough incompetence to go around (not that I would have done any better than they).
I do whole-heartedly recommend this book, but only as a halfway step from history to fiction, perhaps sandwiched between A World Undone and All Quiet on the Western Front.
Worst summer reading I ever had
Customer Rating:
I didn't even bother to finish this book because, although i tried to read it and fell asleep on pretty much every other page, the writing was convoluted and stuffy, the "action" (was there any?) was slow, and I just couldn't bring myself to care about anything this author had to say. A unanimous vote by the AP Euro class I was forced to "read" this for took the book off the reading list for next year's class...although we would have loved to make the following classes suffer the same way we did, we simply could not bring ourselves to stuff this ridiculous book down any other poor students' throats.
Mr. M......You were a cool teacher, but I don't know if I can ever forgive you for letting this haunt my entire summer.
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