Good literature, mediocre history | The Guns of August

Brilliant Easy to Read Narrative | The Guns of August | Barbara W. Tuchman

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	• The Guns of August Barbara W. Tuchman Presidio Press, 2004 - 640 pages average customer review:based on 160 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Guns of August is a classic

I had lost my copy of this book in an airport on a recent trip. I wanted another to finish reading and to keep for future reference. This book is a classic, along with The Proud Tower. I was glad to get it at a reduced price and via such prompt service.

Good literature, mediocre history

First, I really enjoyed this book. I believe Tuchman did a masterful job of giving life to the people and events that led to WWI. This book is well worth reading, but only for what it is: half-history, half-literature.

This is not the place to start if you want to understand what led to WWI. The author does have a distinct anti-German bias that glosses over most of the complexities that influenced Germany's actions. Given when the book was written, this bias is understandable, but it does affect its historical value. Moreover, Serbia and the Hapsburgs are essentially footnotes in this book when in reality, they are essential for understanding the causes of the war. When you ignore Serbia and Austro-Hungary, well, all you're left with is Germany acting like a belligerent punk under the hand of the man-child Wilhelm II.

Also, Tuchman definitely prefers some individuals over others. For example, she gives Sir French pretty short-shrift in comparison to Lord Kitchener when in reality, there was more than enough incompetence to go around (not that I would have done any better than they).

I do whole-heartedly recommend this book, but only as a halfway step from history to fiction, perhaps sandwiched between A World Undone and All Quiet on the Western Front.

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Brilliant Easy to Read Narrative

The Guns of August is an easy to read and flowing history of the early days of World War I. The author does a great job a bringing you up to speed with the state of mind for each of the major players in the early days of the war. The book then moves more or less chronologically through the eve of Marne in great detail. I also like that the author does not take sides. For example, she presents the horrific treatment of Belgium civilians in a matter of fact way but still drives home the terribleness of those actions. The only deficiency (unless this missed it in the notes and sources) is the lack of complete translations for the large number of French phrases used in the book; some of the more obscure are translated but not all. A good English-French dictionary comes in handy.

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Bob Dylan should read this book

In a song Bob Dylan wrote "The First World War it came and it went. The reason for fighting I never did get." I like Dylan, never understood how WWI grew out of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand; then I read The Guns of August. This book is the story of the incredible stupidity, miscalculations, ignorance, and arrogance, that lead to the death of twenty million people, by the rulers and politicians of Europe. In effect it tells how you get from the assassination of one man in Sarajevo to everyone in Europe killing each other, in little more than a month. War may be to important to leave to the generals, but peace seems to suffer at the hands of politicians. Barbra Tuchman,won a well deserved Pulitzer Prize for this book; which is easy to read, thoroughly researched, and well documented. She has been criticized for favoring various nations and individuals, You as the reader can judge this for yourself, but remember critics don't usually reference and footnote their comments. Another criticism of the book, it is more literature than history, why can't history be well written and interesting?
This book covers an extremely complex period very well, it deserves more than five stars.

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"More dramtatic than fiction...THE GUNS OF AUGUST is a magnificent narrative--beautifully organized, elegantly phrased, skillfully paced and sustained....The product of painstaking and sophisticated research."
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Barbara Tuchman has brought to life again the people and events that led up to Worl War I. With attention to fascinating detail, and an intense knowledge of her subject and its characters, Ms. Tuchman reveals, for the first time, just how the war started, why, and why it could have been stopped but wasn't. A classic historical survey of a time and a people we all need to know more about, THE GUNS OF AUGUST will not be forgotten.

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