A review by alexisdpatt
Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War by Max Hastings

challenging dark informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.0

“Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War” by Max Hastings ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“Catastrophe 1914” is an all encompassing look at the first 6 months of World War I. Filled with 600 pages of minute details of the war on all fronts, Hastings has done impeccable research onto the subject. 

My only critic (which is the critique of most monographs) is that it can get a bit dull, boring and dry, but that usually has to do with the academic and their writing style. Hastings isn’t a popular historian and therefore won’t write as one. But if you’re a history buff and more into military history, this is a book that needs to be on your shelf. 

I read this as a companion to “The Summer Before the War” and this, in my not so humble opinion, was more thrilling than the former—which I says more about the novel than Hastings’s writing. 

Now, I’m going to give it a few months—maybe even a year—before I crack open Hastings’s “Inferno.”