Customer Reviews

Complete Idiot's Guide to World War I

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

There's not a single map gracing the pages of this "Idiot's Guide" which indicates perhaps that idiocy is widespread in the publishing industry as well as elsewhere. How can you publish a war book without maps? It's sort of like publishing a book called "Great Paintings of Rembrandt" without any illustrations.

Except for the absence of maps, this book has a lot of virtues. It's easy to read, covers every aspect of the war concisely, defines a lot of technical terms, throws in some apt quotes, gives you a "Who's Who of WW I," and makes sense of what was a brutal, boring, but earth-shattering event.

Most of what happened of interest in the war was during the first month in which the Germans made a huge sweep through Belgium and France -- the Schlieffen Plan -- and nearly won all the marbles in a single turn. German luck and nerve failed however and the French were able to hold on by the skin of their "dents." You can readily skip reading about most of the next four dismal years. It's all about mindless slaughter. Then, in 1918 the allies -- especially the British -- repelled five desperate German offensives and an allied counterattack -- spearheaded by the Americans -- forced the Germans to surrender. A couple of chapters at the end discuss the aftermath of WW I, the "lost generation," the League of Nations, and all the other factors that made WW I the opening act for WW II.

By all means look up "Lawrence, T.E." and "Lettow-Vorbeck, Paul von" in the index for interesting summaries of the war in the Middle East and Africa.

Smallchief

After reading this book, I have come to two conclusions:

1 - It is a very good overview of the First World War. It is detailed and in-depth enough for the layperson, but not too detailed as to be overly analytical. I have found that it is a very helpful summary of the causes, actions, and outcomes of WW I.

2 - There is not one map in the whole book! It gives you overviews, analyses, facts, figures, and locations, but not one map to see how the battles and movements occured! Unless you are a geography buff, my recomendation is that you have an atlas by your side if you choose to read it. This major flaw has caused me to drop my rating from 5-star to 3-star.

In my opinion, if you write a book about places and happenings (such as a major war as WW I), you definitely NEED maps. Please don't get me wrong, this is a very good book, but like I said, you need an atlas to read it.

Don't think you are an idiot if World War One confuses you at times. Any war where the Allies are the Entente and the Alliance is the "bad guys" is bound to be confusing. The details on the buildup to war, political and military, are patient and easily read. The day-to-day fighting is also well told, and then the all-important end of the war and its subsequent treaty are also well done. The post-war aspects are especially thorough, laying the stage for World War II. This owuld be useful for anyone who needs a handbook on the way Wordl War I came about and was fought.

This book was a great overview of a war that is often forgotten in the shadow of World War II. What I liked about it the most was that it was balanced in the amount of treatment it gave to the background treaties and politics, the major battles, the major players, the new technology, the mistakes, etc. The first book on WWI I tried to read overly reflected the author's own focus on battle tactics, etc. to the neglect of the whys. This book was much more balanced. The only reason it doesn't get 5 stars is that, like others pointed out, there were no maps. Given there were photos and charts, I'm sure the publisher is capable of printing non-text items. For an epic war that involved two major fronts, and major powers such as Germany, France, Russia, England, the US, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Greece, Turkey, etc. and saw action in the Middle East and Africa as well as Europe proper, I can't understand why they would have zero maps. It was still worth it however.

I'm going to have to agree with some of the other reviewers, who have said that the thing that keeps this from being a fantastic book, is the lack of maps.

My suggestion: Get the book, but get a WWI-era atlas to accompany it! Some of the countries involved in WWI aren't even in existence anymore, and the book makes a lot more sense if you can picture the different countries discusses.

With that said, I do recommend this book for anyone wanting an overview of the War. Another word of caution, though: This book doesn't read quite as easily as some of the other "Idiot's Guides." It's written at a slightly higher level, so takes a little longer to get through.

It covers the entire time period from the pre-War era and the causes of the War, to the Treaty of Versailles and the post-War activities that actually lead up to WWII. Lots of biographical sketches and pithy quotes contribute to a well-rounded overview.

i picked up this book (along with idiots guide to ww 2) because i wanted to get a basic understanding of this war (and ww2). people i talked to told me that, "ww 1 was boring...all it consisted was trench warfare!" yes, it was basically trench warfare but how did it become so? a lot of things happened in this war that is interesting! for example, the french army had a mutiny. also, how these commanders of these countries had "great plans" with no back-up plan in case that one failed. or how these commanders assumed their enemies will do this or that when making their moves - big mistake! also, these plans fell flat which caused a stalemate along the western front that lasted 4 years. to sum it up this book is chock full of information!

overall, i highly recommend this book for the beginner who wants to get the idea of the great war. i didn't find this book humerous as some idiots guides are and thats fine with me. i find axlerod's approach straight forward and in a clear cut manner. i have one quibble as did some other reviews - not one map! they could've put in one map (at least) of europe during 1914 to give us the visualization of where these outdated countries were and the fronts lines. for that, i'll have to refer to thre idiots guide to nazi germany (another excellent book to fill in the gap between ww 1 and 2).

This book tackles this broad subject well. It is said that World War I is not a "popular" war to study because it's simply too complicated. This book helps straighten out the confusion and does a good job of addressing the different facets of this war. This is a good book to start with; it can help readers decide which avenue they want to study further (e.g. Pershing, weapondry, aerial, etc.)

I really should have read the reviews on this page before buying this book, but, like an 'Idiot', I didn't. I wasn't prepared for the absolute lack of maps throughout the entire book. Those of us in the US, and less familiar with the countries involved, will have the hardest time. Still, I'm not exactly a complete novice (as another reviewer put it) in European geography. I mean, I know my Hungarians from my Bulgarians and I know my Baltic from my Balkans, but after only a few pages, the book had me scrambling for a world atlas just to follow along (what, exactly, is Prussia's location in regards to Lorraine?). This being a beginner's guide, it is absolutely inexcusable to leave out maps of the basic logistics involved in World War I.

Getting beyond that, the book is well written and flows in a logical manner. Most issues are described in the right amount of detail to keep things interesting without getting too esoteric. It does occasionally get repetitious, but that's not neccessarily a bad thing in a book meant for beginners. With maps, this 3 star book would be a 4.5-5 star maps.

I remember reading this book as an introduction to WW1 as I knew very little about it.I now have read and studied a lot about it as it is a major turning point in the history of the world,especially as we know it today.It is a very good introduction.I suggest for beginners to read a book like this which covers the overall war and then to pick specific battles or politics to read about.When you read this,I then suggest BARBARA TUCHMANS "GUNS OF AUGUST".

The Complete Idiot's Guide to WWI was an entertaining read and extremely informative. Key pieces of information were chunked and summarized so that the reader could get an overall grasp on the important events and effects of the war. The writing style was casual and leisurely enough to read, which is what I was looking for. Overall, it was a pretty good book, but there was a glaring omission. Where were the maps, charts, or pictures? There is not one single picture in the entire book! I can understand only having a few pictures, but none? Also, there were wide references to this country and that country but not one single map to illustrate and help the reader. I found that extremely odd. There were also numerous places where countries were being compared and there wasn't a single chart or graph. If this book is truly being written for those looking for an easy read and quick interest in a topic, then it seems to be only logical to have pictures, maps, and graphs to help people get the point.