He acquaints us with the thoughts of the intriguing personalities who oversaw the tragically unnecessary catastrophe-from heads of state like Russia's hapless tsar, Nicholas II, to renowned warmakers such as Haig, Hindenburg and Joffre. No less central to Keegan's account is the human aspect. With unequalled authority and insight, he recreates the nightmarish engagements whose names have become legend-Verdun, the Somme and Gallipoli among them-and sheds new light on the strategies and tactics employed, particularly the contributions of geography and technology. But the heart of Keegan's superb narrative is, of course, his analysis of the military conflict.

Keegan reveals how, by an astonishing failure of diplomacy and communication, a bilateral dispute grew to engulf an entire continent. The First World War probes the mystery of how a civilization at the height of its achievement could have propelled itself into such a ruinous conflict and takes us behind the scenes of the negotiations among Europe's crowned heads (all of them related to one another by blood) and ministers, and their doomed efforts to defuse the crisis. It also helped to usher in the ideas that have shaped our times-modernism in the arts, new approaches to psychology and medicine, radical thoughts about economics and society-and in so doing shattered the faith in rationalism and liberalism that had prevailed in Europe since the Enlightenment. A conflict of unprecedented ferocity, it abruptly ended the relative peace and prosperity of the Victorian era, unleashing such demons of the twentieth century as mechanized warfare and mass death.

The First World War created the modern world. Keegan is.perhaps the best military historian of our day.' - The New York Times Book Review 'Elegantly written, clear, detailed, and omniscient.

of photos.īook Synopsis NATIONAL BESTSELLER - The definitive account of the Great War from one of our most eminent military historians. About the Book In the definitive account of the Great War, Keegan sheds fascinating light on weaponry and technology shows the doomed negotiations between the monarchs and ministers of 1914 and takes readers into the verminous trenches of the Western front.

The First World War by John Keegan