A review by davehershey
The First World War by John Keegan
3.0
What draws me to history books is to get a feel for what it was like to live in the moments described. What would it have been like to cross the Rubicon with Caesar or to march into Russia with Napoleon? The trenches of WWI are possibly one of the worst places in history to find yourself. While Keegan does a good job of telling the story of the Great War, he seemed to focus more on names and dates then on getting down in the dirt. So the book offers a great history, from beginning to end, of the war, but I didn't feel like I was there.
Most of the time when Keegan describes a battle, he takes pains to say which armies were there. So we hear that it was the French such and such divisions with help from this and that brigade opposed by German armies 18, 20 and 21. It got to be kind of like reading statistics - you get that this is big, for the numbers of armies and bombs and such are large. But after a while the affect wears off and it starts to mean little.
The best parts of the book then are when he does offer quotes from soldiers in the trenches, or insights into the characters of the people fighting the war. But those tend to be lost in the details of everything else. Maybe in a book this size, covering what it covered, doing more was impossible. Which is why it is a great volume to get into the ins and outs of the Great War. But if you want to feel it, you have got to listen to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast on the War!
Most of the time when Keegan describes a battle, he takes pains to say which armies were there. So we hear that it was the French such and such divisions with help from this and that brigade opposed by German armies 18, 20 and 21. It got to be kind of like reading statistics - you get that this is big, for the numbers of armies and bombs and such are large. But after a while the affect wears off and it starts to mean little.
The best parts of the book then are when he does offer quotes from soldiers in the trenches, or insights into the characters of the people fighting the war. But those tend to be lost in the details of everything else. Maybe in a book this size, covering what it covered, doing more was impossible. Which is why it is a great volume to get into the ins and outs of the Great War. But if you want to feel it, you have got to listen to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast on the War!