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A review by kayoreads
Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War by Max Hastings
4.0
The big takeaways from Catastrophe 1914: war is the worst thing ever, and WWI in particular started for really no reason! The book's beginning was the most interesting to me because it catalogs the nonsense that led to the first world war, which was essentially Austria and Germany wanting war and finding an excuse to begin one. The rest of the book is extremely depressing, as you learn just how many people and animals died because of their leaders' stupidity and how the soldiers (and civilians) suffered. The incompetence and ignorance of the European leaders on all sides of the war and the blunders they made in its earliest days would almost be comical, if tens of thousands of people weren't dying because of them.
Though the book takes a while to get through because of its thickness, I never felt that Hastings' writing was dull or difficult. Hastings' well-researched opinions and insights on the war alone make this book worth it, and I feel like I walked away with the greatest understanding of WWI that I've ever had. He nicely intersperses his writing with first-hand accounts of soldiers and civilians, which was invaluable in the insight it offered into public opinion at the time. However, sometimes the first-person accounts were carried a bit too far, and I found myself wondering how all the extra details contributed to the book overall. My only other problem with the book was that it focuses heavily on the Western front, merely glossing over the events on the Eastern front and in Serbia. While I understand that the Western front was the most important strategically and am not surprised at Hastings' bias as an Englishman, I was a bit disappointed that the Eastern battles were not covered as deeply.
Though the book takes a while to get through because of its thickness, I never felt that Hastings' writing was dull or difficult. Hastings' well-researched opinions and insights on the war alone make this book worth it, and I feel like I walked away with the greatest understanding of WWI that I've ever had. He nicely intersperses his writing with first-hand accounts of soldiers and civilians, which was invaluable in the insight it offered into public opinion at the time. However, sometimes the first-person accounts were carried a bit too far, and I found myself wondering how all the extra details contributed to the book overall. My only other problem with the book was that it focuses heavily on the Western front, merely glossing over the events on the Eastern front and in Serbia. While I understand that the Western front was the most important strategically and am not surprised at Hastings' bias as an Englishman, I was a bit disappointed that the Eastern battles were not covered as deeply.