An Illustrated History of the First World War
Matching nearly 500 photographs, maps, and prints to a thoughtful,   interpretive text, renowned military historian John Keegan again turns his  attention to "the war to end all wars."The outbreak of World War I, Keegan notes, caught many Europeans and Americans  by surprise. "Europe in the summer of 1914," he writes, "enjoyed a peaceful  productivity so dependent on international co-operation that a belief in the  impossibility of general war seemed the most conventional of wisdoms." That  wisdom was quickly shattered with the onset of hostilities in the Balkans, which  soon swept the continent and the world. Keegan takes a large view of events (the  massive, multimillion-man offensives along the fronts, for instance) while  recalling the agonies (and occasional triumphs) of countless individuals on both  sides of the conflict. As he writes, Keegan offers a number of correctives  (against other historians, for instance, he asserts that German forces indeed  committed atrocities in Belgium), and he catalogs the blunders and disorders  that cost each side needlessly and dearly.No contemporary historian is better equipped than Keegan for his subject, and  this book merits a place on the shelf of every student of modern history.-- Gregory McNamee