This book was released in 2001 as the first in a three part series. Eighteen years later neither of the last two parts have been released so your guess is as good as mine as to whether we will see either-note that the author is 69. Bad news out of the way the good news is that this is perhaps the most fairly current, well researched and written, comprehensive survey of WW I (the early part anyway) available. Warning, not for the faint of heart, the Amazon typical read time for this 1234 page book is 39 hours and 5 minutes. Lets break it down by sections:
intro/maps/lead up/social conditions>11% of the book>well done, comprehensive survey of events leading to the war, the Balkans, African crisis, festering resentments from the French, trade rivalry with the Brits, clumsy German diplomacy-its all there.
western front>7% of the book> surprisingly brief but thorough treatment of what is considered the main theater of the war. It's got maps but on an ereader they're barely readable. For tactical buffs with their own maps there is enough written detail to do table top reenactments.
eastern front>5% of the book>ditto above for the secondary theater.
northern naval operations>5% of the book>more strategic overview and less tactical detail than land campaigns probably because there were not that many actions aside from British blockade patrolling.
Pacific operations>3% of the book>often ignored theater that showed the British navy may have had its best days behind it as it bumbled a modest threat into a major resource drain.
African operations>9% of the book>fascinating/occasionally excruciating detail that sharpened up my vague knowledge of the theater-the author suggests that German General Paul von Lettow-Vorbek's fabled guerrilla warfare against overwhelming British forces may may have had other elements besides his skill in play. Again all the detail you table toppers need.
Turkish/global operations>10% of the book>covers all the Islamic elements and one of my favorite parts done in fine detail, the North African operations against the French and Italians.
financing the war>11% of the book>explains how the world went to hell financially while everybody was so busy killing each other. I would have liked to see more charts and fewer paragraphs stuffed with multi-year industrial output comparisons of the combatants which are even more boring than the charts, trust me.
industrial mobilization>8% of the book>It is amazing how all the parties involved found ways to beg, buy, make or steal what they needed to sustain intense conflict over such an extended time. Same thoughts as above on charts versus trying to present it all in paragraph form.
vague intellectual musing about the war finished off the main body>I% of the book> intellectual vaporing and political butt covering, fast forward for me.
bibliography>30% of the book>while Hew Strachan has written only 16 books in 44 years of writing, they are exquisitely detailed and that suggests that he probably has read many of the books in this very extensive bibliography.
It would be easy to find a shorter book on the subject but difficult to find a better one. For me, the best parts were when he made 'big picture' observations that put a lot of things into perspective that other reads didn't.
$17.04/book price divided by Amazon typical read time of 39 hours, 5 minutes = $.44/average hourly reading cost
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Jonathan F. Vernon
Informed, concise and historically close to the current perspective.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 19, 2014Godi
A very interesting and deep book, mainly in the ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 12, 2015
