A review by binstonbirchill
The First World War by John Keegan

4.0

I've only read a handful of books about World War I and this is the first that covered the entire war. Keegan does a great job of setting the stage for the conflict and laying out the war plans and expectations of each of the major powers. With only 427 pages of text it's impossible to give a detailed account of any one phase in the war but what is given helps put together the overall picture of the war. He jumps from the Western Front to the Eastern Front based on when there are lulls in the fighting (winter) and also covers the fighting on the periphery. At times it can be a bit heavy on statistics but some of the comparisons he draws from those statistics really illuminate just how terrible certain battles were. The book has a great mix of strategy, analysis, and personal accounts. Those looking for anything more specific in any area will want to delve deeper but for what this book was intended to be, a very solid overview of the war, it definitely hits the mark.

Side note: Maps are essential, good maps are a blessing. A few of the maps contained within were frustrating because they didn't have some of the locations in the text noted... I always find that disappointing. On the positive side there were a good amount of maps and they mostly did a good job of showing what needed to be shown.