The First World War

I had seen the TV series that this book was based on and had to admit to myself that that was all I had to offer in terms of knowledge on the subject. So the book was going to be hopefully a more than useful beginner's guide and it has turned out to be so. Each chapter was full of subject matter that made me realise I need to dig deeper into the Great War. The book itself covers mostly the political events and the major battles with the cultural events hardly covered. Fair enough I suppose. 330 pages cannot be enough to cover such a momentous event, an event that has had consequences even now, one hundred years later.

As I beginner I found myself realising that from an English speaking perspective and living in Australia the vast majority of what little I did know was British and ANZAC. This book makes me want to expand to the eastern front and look further into the Russian Revolution. The French took a hideous smashing on the western front and that to needs further reading. I think that war weariness played a huge part in how they approached WW2.

With that, anyone with deep knowledge of the subject may find this a bit too beginner friendly so I would not recommend it to the well-read. I also found a couple of indexing errors that should not have occurred and there is no bibliography though the footnotes do cover that area fairly well. A solid though not spectacular read and glad to have read it. I now understand the lure of the Great War to those that have immersed themselves into its dense written history.