Martin Gilbert (1) (1936–2015)

This is not a book you will enjoy reading, but its a must-read nevertheless. This is a relentless pounding with figures, page after page of number, each number representing a human life lost in the worst crime of the 20th century if not all history. Individual names appear and then disappear, the fate of every Jew from even the most obscure villages all over Europe recounted in calm emotionleess tones. This is not a book screaming with anger or seeking revenge, it is a book for proving, with show more slow relentless logic, that this unspeakable crime actually happened. As I said this is not a book you will enjoy, it will make you squirm, it will make you weep, it will make you boil with rage, but you will remember. That's its purpose and it achieves it admirably show less

I read every word of this exquisitely painful book, a testament without parallel. What a work of history, of documentation, of witness. To present this overwhelming human tragedy, in such detail--I do not really have words to describe how it has affected me, nor how grateful I am for it. Please, everyone, read it.

The First World War seems to be the forgotten war. Having read dozens of books covering World War II and the Russian Revolution, I recently finished "The Rise and the Fall of the Third Reich" and "Mein Kamph" in which Hitler blames the Communist Jewish agitators for the German defeat in WW I. How could that be, I wondered. Having inspired me to seek out the truth by pealing the historical onion one layer at a time, my reading efforts became focused on getting to the root of the entire show more European and Middle Eastern debacle and develop a better understanding of the geographical, political, and cultural disputes that resulted in two world wars and the continuing struggles that still exist today.

In the Introduction of "The First World War" Gilbert writes, “The war changed the map and destiny of Europe as much as it seared its skin and scarred its soul.” And indeed it did. During those 5 years, over 9 million military personnel died, 45 million were wounded, and God only knows how many million civilians died from starvation, disease, and ethnic cleansing. It is documented that at least 1 million Armenians were massacred.

And aside from numerous borders being re-drawn, and a few new countries claiming independence, the war resulted in 4 Royal Empires falling: The Kaiser of Germany, The Ottoman Empire in Turkey, the Habsburg Empire in Austria and Hungary, and the Tsar in Russia.

Martin Gilbert tells the entire story of the war from 1914 when the heir to the Austrian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, is murdered by a Serbian, to 1919 when the final peace treaty was signed. Year by year, country by country, each battle is vividly described. Escalating from 2 primary fronts involving Austria, Germany, Russia, France and Belgium, the war engulfed most of Europe, a good portion of the Middle East, Russia, and select parts of Africa. In total, it eventually encompassed 14 different war fronts and 11 nations. Some nations hopped on the war bandwagon simply in the hopes of gaining new territory. There are 31 reference maps which aid the reader in tracing the battles, charting the changing borders, and understanding the various war fronts.

At the onset, many battles were considered ‘trench warfare’… bloody fighting carried out on foot and horseback - with troops seeking safety in muddy trenches. Additionally soldiers were delivered by rail and fought at sea. The weapons were bayonets and simple guns. All countries involved used World War I as an opportunity to experiment with new types of warfare, thus developing machine guns, airplanes, bombs, tanks, grenades, and poisonous gas.

This is not just a dry factual history text book. It comes to life like a 3D technicolor movie. There are excerpts of letters from soldiers, quotes from many historical figures like Einstein and Woodrow Wilson. There are explanations of strategy and internal political struggles. And as the countries became war weary, there are stories of strikes, deserters, mutiny and revolution.

Here again the reader realizes that truth is stranger than fiction. After reading personal stories of all the battles, the death, disease, starvation, wounds, carnage, destruction, pain and suffering- week by week- battle by battle- front by front- for 5 long torturous years, you will wonder how those same countries could possibly enter another World War just 20 years later? This book offers that very explanation. The reader comes to realize that it was inevitable… taking only one lunatic like Hitler to get it started.

Oh, and by the way, the book explains in detail that Germany did not lose WW I because of Communist or Jewish agitators. Germany went into the war expecting a quick victory. Troops were ordered to “fight to the finish”. 2 million were killed, and 4.2 million injured. By 1919 Germany’s allies were surrendering, resources were diminishing, and properly trained soldiers were no longer available. The German army was in the process of recruiting (by force) young boys 14 and 15 years of age, and old men. It would have been a travesty to continue fighting against several million professionally trained, well equipped, healthy American soldiers.

This book should be required reading in history and world cultures classes. "The First World War" is comprehensive, powerful, informative, unbiased, and intellectually stimulating. The best book I read in 2017! show less

Among all of the titanic figures of World War II, there is none that looms larger than the figure of Winston Churchill. I suppose what strikes me most is, while certainly a colorful character, he is really quite a simple one. His courageous actions were driven, in reality, by a very few core principles and a generous serving of dogged determination. I suppose it could be said without exaggeration that Churchill is THE icon of 20th-century conservative politics.

There is, almost certainly, no show more greater authority on Churchill's life than Martin Gilbert, who was named Churchill's official biographer in 1968. Compared to his 8-volume official biography, the present book is something of an appendix, I suppose, but I found it charmingly written and very skillful in its argument that Churchill--because of his American roots, his grasp of the American psyche and political system, and mainly his stubborn optimism that the USA and Britain could and should be friends--is perhaps THE "Prime Mover" of US-GB relations from World War II up to present day.

I suppose, in some ways, the book could be said (not totally unexpectedly) to favor Churchill; when tensions are described, more often Roosevelt of Truman or Eisenhower are identified as the point of origin. By and large, though, the descriptions of those difficulties never struck me as completely unfair or irreparably biased. Gilbert does a great job of letting the reader see events through Churchill's eyes, wonderfully helped by the generous quotations from Churchill's telegrams, speeches, letters, and notes.

This the first book I've read focused on Winston Churchill and I suppose the best compliment I can give it is that it has left me wanting to read more about this remarkable British prime minister, whose decisive leadership shaped world history in ways that we have probably not yet fully fathomed. show less