Hew Strachan

I searched Amazon for books in the category of history with a subject of World War I, and received over 30,000 results. Since I lack multiple lifetimes to devote to this subject, expert recommendations carry a lot of weight with me. Thus I took note when John R. Schindler, former professor at the Naval War College, recommended this as the war’s best one-volume introduction; and it did not disappoint.

This isn’t a lengthy book, so it can’t afford to sprawl into elaborate detail on any show more given theater, battle, or topic. What results is a tight roadmap of a conflict far more riveting than Hollywood can offer in the occasional two-hour movie about trenches in France. Sir Hew Strachan brings to this landmark volume the touch of a master painter who knows his subject and his craft so thoroughly that he can convey a landscape in a brushstroke.

I’m especially impressed with his interpretation of the causes of the war. His exposition is more convincing than the narrative you sometimes hear of leaders tripping over a web of treaties and falling accidentally into war. Strachan argues persuasively that each combatant believed itself to be waging a defensive war for undeniable national interests. No one stumbled helplessly into the Great War.

I also appreciate the attention given to theaters often neglected in the imagination of Western Europe and the United States. Austria-Hungary’s desperate attempt to subdue Serbia before the Russian bear could land its weight comes in for attention just as thoughtful as that given to the abortive Entente assault at Gallipoli or the killing fields of Verdun and Passchendaele. The campaigns in the African colonies get a whole chapter all to themselves.

Finally, I want to mention two highlights: the photographs and the maps. All the photos are great, providing visual context and breaking up the text without overwhelming it. But what I find unique and electrifying are the central panels of color photographs. Not colorized: reproductions of actual color photographs developed during the war by a French firm using experimental methods lost to time. These gorgeous prints bring liveliness and immediacy to a war that can seem remote and sterile simply because we usually see it in black and white.

Last but certainly not least, the maps are better than usual. I have a pet peeve with history books that either fail to provide maps, or provide maps that are cluttered beyond usefulness, or provide maps that connect poorly with the text. These maps are clean and easy to read, including almost every place of any importance in the book. All of them are collected conveniently in the front, so you don’t have to flip around trying to find that map of the Baltic front or that inset of Ypres.

Former Professor Schindler doesn’t need my vindication, but I can’t find a reason to disagree with him. This is a worthy introduction to the subject, and I can’t recommend it highly enough if you want a comprehensive primer on the War to End War. show less

Hew Strachan's The First World War is somewhat of a companion piece to the documentary series of the same name. It was interesting to read the book after watching the series, because the book preserves much of the thematic-vice chronological-approach of the series. While I thought that approach worked really well for tv, it made for slightly scattered reading and I was glad that I had already read a couple more straightforward histories of the war because the book, by necessity, jumped show more around in time and place quite a bit.

Highlights for me: Strachan's discussion of the development, refinement, and integration of new tactics and technologies of warfare (one of the reasons I find ww1 so fascinating in the first place), and his discussion in the final pages of the book about how the meaning and memories of the war changed over time-many participants in the war did not initially view it as the exercise in futility that they would later come to see it as. This latter point led Strachan, both in the book and in the documentary, to place a premium on using soldiers' contemporaneous reflections, rather than their later memories, when trying to capture the lived experience. show less

An interesting, but somewhat unsatisfactory, book. It has some keen arguments and insights, though the (deliberate, as acknowledged in the acknowledgments) refusal to engage with other views about aspects of WWI is somewhat infuriating. Furthermore, this book is somewhat disjointed, and one would have to say that the chapters, and their various sub-sections, do not give the impression that they naturally follow on from each other. This is probably linked to the fact that the book is a show more companion piece to a TV documentary series. One would assume that that documentary itself could use other media aside from words (images, etc.), as well as repetition (there is generally a week between episodes after all), to link different sections. Here, repetition has been understandably eschewed. Yet, no compensating means of linking different sections has been employed.
Despite these faults, there are notable merits. Hew Strachan clearly has great strategic and tactical insight, and can see the linkage between, to adapt the popular cliché for my purposes, both the big picture wood and the small detail trees. It is also a noticeably less anglo-centric history of the war than I am used to seeing in this part of the world, providing admirable insight into French, Balkan and German war experiences (though I have the nagging feeling that small countries and territories could be better served, even within the limits of a 1-volume treatment? For example, Belgium goes missing for 4 years between the war's beginning and end, while Ireland, despite being a large and difficult chunk of the UK at the time, and one greatly affected by the Great War to boot, goes unmentioned). The author also has both a remarkable breadth of knowledge and a gift for conveying it to the reader.
Overall, the book is worth reading, but the casual historian should not use it as his/her sole guide to the Great War. show less

Only the first third of the book can be described as a biography, and this is the most accessible part. Clausewitz rose to major general and fought Napoleon, but never reached the highest command. Appointed head of Prussia's Military Academy in 1818, he spent the rest of his life writing and rewriting his massive work, which remained unfinished and was published posthumously. Few outside the country paid attention until Prussia's astonishing victory over France in 1870. (The first English show more translation was in 1873). Readers who know Clausewitz's maxim that "war is politics carried on by other means" will yearn for more insights, and the author provides these. Though generals often proclaim wars must end in absolute victory, Clausewitz asserted that in the real world annihilating the enemy is rarely possible and often a bad idea. Strachan works hard at defining what Clausewitz meant, comparing various writings, discussing precise meanings of German words, filling in textual gaps and quarreling with other interpretations. show less