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    A Short History of World War I
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    A Short History of World War I
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    A Short History of World War I
    Ebook501 pages8 hours

    A Short History of World War I

    By James L. Stokesbury

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    World War I was a bloodletting so vast and unprecedented that for a generation it was known simply as the Great War. Casualty lists reached unimagined proportions as the same ground -- places like Ypres and the Somme -- was fought over again and again. Other major bloody battles remain vivid in memory to this day: Gallipoli and the Battle of Jutland are but two examples. Europe was at war with itself, and the effect on Western civilization was profound, its repercussions felt even today.

    World War I saw the introduction of modern technology into the military arena: The tank, airplane, machine gun, submarine, and -- most lethal of all -- poison gas, all received their first widespread use. Professor Stokesbury analyzes these technological innovations and the war's complex military campaigns in lucid detail. At the same time he discusses the great political events that unfolded during the war, such as the Russian Revolution and the end of the Hapsburg dynasty, putting the social and political side of the war into the context of modern European history.

    A Short History of World War I is the first history of this war to be written in twenty years. It incorporates recent research and current thinking about the war in a highly readable and lively style.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateMar 17, 2009
    ISBN9780061763618
    Unavailable
    A Short History of World War I
    Author

    James L. Stokesbury

    James L. Stokesbury is the author of A Short History of World War I, A Short History of World War II, A Short History of the Korean War, and A Short History of the American Revolution. Before his death in 1995 he was a professor of history at Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada.

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    • 3/5
      So which would you rather have, comprehensibility or comprehensiveness?Few writers of history do a better job of explaining than does James L. Stokesbury. His prose is straightforward and easy to understand, and whatever topic he takes up, he chews on it until he has managed to make it make sense.But should World War I make sense? It was the result of an endless game of "chicken" between the great powers, with the strategies worked out by staff officers and low-level career bureaucrats who were never given any chance to see the big picture of what they were working on, and then executed by incompetents with no real experience in war and no understanding of the new weapons the scientists had given them. It is a tale of men (all of them were men) promoted by rigid rules and the ability to understand the system, because there was no good way to test for competence. Perhaps we shouldn't seek to make The Great War make sense; perhaps it was just a reflection of chaos theory.And for all his lucidity, Stokesbury sometimes plays a little fast and loose with the data, or simply breezes past a difficult topic where more than one viewpoint is possible. In a book lacking in scholarly apparatus, this leaves the reader with little knowledge of just where the "trouble spots" are.Do not misunderstand me; this is a brilliant history. It is unquestionably the most straightforward history of the War that I have ever read, and if I were going to recommend a "starter history," this would be it. But if you are going to do an in-depth study, you'll need more -- and, at times, you'll have to be prepared to abandon ideas Stokesbury has given you.
    • 5/5
      Stokesbury is a grounded scholar with a sense of humor, which makes the utterly tragic history of WWI easier to read about. This is definately a short introduction to a massive and complex story; this war has been parsed into confetti for nearly 90 years now, so there isn't much new to say about it. Nonetheless Stokesbury brings a fresh eye to the politics surrounding the campaigns. His writing is excellent, as is is scholarship, and the book is an enjoyable read. Not quite an easy read, but certainly enjoyable.