World War One: A Short History [Hardcover]

Norman Stone (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 28, 2009

In 1914, a new kind of war came about, bringing with it a new kind of world. World War One began on horseback, with generals employing bayonet charges to gain ground, and ended with attacks resembling the Nazi blitzkriegs. The scale of devastation was unlike anything the world had seen before: Fourteen million combatants died, a further twenty million were wounded, and four empires were destroyed. Even the victors’ empires were fatally damaged.

An overwhelming disaster from which the world is still recovering, World War One can seem baffling in its complexity. But now Norman Stone, one of world’s greatest military historians, has composed a dazzlingly lucid and succinct history of the conflict. Stone has distilled a lifetime of teaching, arguing, and thinking into this brisk and opinionated account of the fundamental tragedy of the twentieth century.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Stone is as unconventional as he is brilliant, and this provocative interpretation of the Great War combines impressive command of the literature with a telling eye for relevant facts and a sensitive ear for telling epigrams. Stone presents a Europe that in 1914 bestrode the world like the proverbial colossus. Four years later, the continent faced a spectrum of disasters: shattered economies, shattered societies, shattered lives and shattered illusions. Stone demonstrates the contingent nature of the war's outbreak and analyzes the continued failure to achieve decision on the Western Front until 1917. Stone specializes in Great War Russia, does a first-rate job of presenting the consequences of the collapse of four empires: Hapsburg, German, tsarist and Ottoman. He challenges current interpretations of the postwar treaties, presenting them as a list of failures. The attempt to integrate the world economy collapsed. The postwar expansion of colonial empires proved ephemeral. The League of Nations declined into irrelevance. Stone reserves his harshest criticism for the punitive terms imposed on a Germany convinced neither of its defeat nor the injustice of its cause. That, he asserts convincingly, laid the groundwork for a second, more terrible conflict. Photos, maps. (May)
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From Booklist

For readers trepidatious about plowing through a weighty standard World War I history, there is the brief alternative Michael Howard offered in The First World War (2002) and now Stone’s précis. Setting the table for 1914, Stone defines the lineups of the Entente and Central Powers, their underlying conflicts of interest, and their military preparations for a general European war. That done, he paraphrases the strategic thinking of German leaders—better war now than wait for France and Russia to complete their armament programs—that induced them to risk an international explosion in 1914. From the illusions of rapid victory in one campaign, Stone elides to the hopeful successor strategies shattered by trench warfare, rendering his synopses of failed offensives East and West in vernacular language that conveys history’s summary judgments of generals’ performances. A concise anticipator of his audience’s implicit questions, such as what protracted a seemingly futile war, Stone, with distinctive wryness, introduces WWI’s origin, conduct, and consequences with emphasis on essentials. --Gilbert Taylor

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 16 and up
  
• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; 1St Edition edition (April 28, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465013686
• ISBN-13: 978-0465013685
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #654,966 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good, Short Guide to World War One, June 23, 2009

By 

Tim Challies (Oakville, Ontario) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: World War One: A Short History (Hardcover)

It is difficult to do justice to as great an event as the First World War in only 180 pages, but Stone does as well as we could hope. He does particularly well in describing the causes of the war and in showing at the end of his narrative how this war was really the prelude for the even greater, even more costly Second World War. Though it is relatively easy to read, it can be a little bit difficult to follow simply because so much had to be left out so this could be, as it claims, a short history. Still, anyone who is eager to read a brief overview of the War, or anyone who seeks to understand some of the background to the Second War, would do well to read this book.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Summary of "The War to End Wars"., March 11, 2010

By 

James Barton Phelps (Menlo Park, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: World War One: A Short History (Hardcover)

When you put this book down - and it doesn't take all that long to read the 190 pages of it - one is left with two opinions - or at least I was. First, that you have read a very readable, authoritative and concise history of this horrible and unnecessary conflict; and, Second, that you need some time to consider what it all meant in the long run - the rise of two dictatorial and militant states (Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia) a second even more terrible war, the end of France as a controlling European power, the end of war "as we knew it" - the war of with cavalry charges, bugles and "gallantry" etc.

This was war of a new kind. No longer is war left to the warriors. The entire population is involved. Cities (London) were bombed from the air for the first time. There are new weapons - tanks, airplanes, poison gas - entire countries laid waste physically and economically. And I could go on. But you get the drift. The thinking and analyses part takes longer than the reading part.
With respect to the reading part I learned a lot I had not known about the fighting on the Eastern front and in the Carpathians. Professor Stone is trenchant and opinionated; but for anyone wanting a concise history of World War I this is the book for that person. However, if you want more facts - and I did - John Keegan's "The First World War" (Vintage Books 2000) gives a fuller account of the tragedy and is beautifully written - well worth reading.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A highly readable short history of World War One, July 18, 2009

By 

Jerry Saperstein (Evanston, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: World War One: A Short History (Hardcover)

In 190 pages plus maps, Prof. Norman Stone summarizes World War One, variously and erroneously know as "The Great War" and the "War To End All Wars". It was, in fact, a grandiose display of human stupidity. All the "great powers" were involved with perhaps 70 million men putting on uniforms and taking up arms. In the end, 15 million were dead and the stage was set for an even bloodier world conflict in less than a generation.

WWI is boring to most people. The Western Front was largely static, with no grand advances or retreats by either side after the first few months. The Eastern Front, while it laid the groundwork for the cataclysmic collapse of Tsarist Russia was more dynamic, but also more remote to most readers. The peripheral fronts along the Italian border and in the Middle East are scarcely known, though the events in the latter laid the foundation for the world situation today.

Thus, this very concise history by Prof. Stone should be greeted with delight by the casual student of history attempting to grasp how the 20th Century became the most deadly time in history.

Stone's command of the subject is complete. His vast knowledge is demonstrated by his judicious omission of details that would be vital in a more specialized history. Stone provides the outline of how the war came to be after one of the most peaceful and inventive eras of European history. He is unsparing in his treatment of the politicians of the major players and their grasping for greater power, wealth and territory.

The scale of the war, which could have been prevented by any of several "leaders", was made possible by the increased production capability and wealth of each of the belligerents. Stone does an excellent job of explaining how national cultures shaped the military strategy and tactics of each nation. For the British and French, the Napoleonic wars of the 19th Century provided the model, a state of mind that literally murdered millions of young men. The Germans, ironically, had greater faith in their individual citizens and produced a stronger army with more innovative tactics.

The Russians were simply hopeless, with only a few rare exceptions.

Stone explains how the Western Front ossified into trench warfare, with one bloodletting after another because military leaders in general failed to recognize the reality of industrial age warfare. (Stone touches upon, but does not go into detail about, the sophistication of the trench systems, which is a worthy subject in its own right.)

Each of the major battles is analyzed, which is quite a feat in so few pages.

Overall, Professor Stone has produced a highly readable short history which will fill in the blanks for many about World War I.

Jerry