Customer Reviews

The World Crisis: An Abridgement of the Classic Four-Volume History of World War I

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Churchill's memoirs of World War 1 is one of the finest works of history ever written and is probably among the three or four best works on WW1(together with Martin Gilbert's recent History of the First World War).It is also a masterpiece of Engish literature, demonstrating a prose style that later won Churchill the Nobel Prize. While the book necessarily reflects Churchill's own experiences in the war,it is reasonably unbiased and balanced,although he certainly presents his own case forcefully and convincingly. The only limitation of the book is that it was written only afew years after the end of the war so it did not have access to all the government arhives released later.Despite this,I believe that Churhill's conclusions have stood up well even in the light of subsequently released archive material. However,one might consider reading the book together with a "modern" history--such as Martin Gilbert's--for a more complete perspective.

This magnificent abridgement, published eight years before Hitler invaded Poland, clearly illustrates the fatal miscalculations with which the European nations entered and waged The Great War of 1914-18, and presages the dreadful and continuing consequences of having pursed them to the end. The final pages are as moving a condemnation of war as is found in English, made all the more poignant by our foreknowledge of Churchill's subsequent achievements. If you want to know how our world got to be the way it is today, start with this book.