Reddit reviews The First World War

I hear you. If you're interested in reading on the topic, this book by John Keegan is excellent. I read it once for a class in college and could not recommend it more highly.

The Pity of War by Niall Ferguson
The Great War by Peter Hart
The First World War by John Keegan
The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman

The First World War by John Keegan is a really excellent overview of the war that's a really great read in its own right.

The First World War by Keegan is not a bad read.

I find John Keegan's analysis (in his WW1 book) most convincing. The Schleiffen plan:

was out of date when it was implemented

badly underestimated Russian mobilization, not entirely but significantly due to racism and stereotyping

had no real contingency for British intervention in the west

was held in secret from the German diplomats

Et forslag kunne være John Keegans bog om krigen:

https://www.amazon.com/First-World-War-John-Keegan/dp/0375700455

Alt af John Keegan er generelt værd at læse, hans klassiker "The face of battle" har også noget om Somme slaget.

For en detaljeret generel gennemgang af krigen set fra Tyskland/østrig ungarns synspunkt er Holger Herwigs bog her fantastisk:

https://www.amazon.com/First-World-War-Austria-Hungary-1914-1918/dp/0340573481

I highly recommend John Keegan's The First World War - it's quite long, but very approachable to someone not familiar with the period.

EDIT: Fixed the link. That's what happens when I try to look up books on Amazon on my phone.

The First World War.

The First World War by John Keegan

The First World War by John Keegan.

The First World War by John Keegan https://www.amazon.com/dp/0375700455/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_RKNLxbX912QTD

I also have this absolutely monstrous six volume set: The Great War: The Illustrated History of the First World War: 6 Volume Set https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000OTDY5A/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_YMNLxbPYYR9FQ

That one might be a little more than you're looking for though.

I can recommend two. 1) politics https://www.amazon.com/Sleepwalkers-How-Europe-Went-1914/dp/0061146668. Military https://www.amazon.com/First-World-War-John-Keegan/dp/0375700455.

I'm actually in the middle of First World War by John Keegan and he makes the same claim (except for Britain). I don't know what his primary sources are though.

John Keegan's The First World War is a well written one-volume history.

I don't know how badly out of date it is, since it was written in 2000, but Keegan is a top-notch military historian.

/r/AskHistorians provides a Book List in their Wiki including [WWI] (https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/books/wwi) books.

I listened to "Blueprint for Armageddon" and liked it. Dan Carlin cites John Keegan a lot who wrote The First World War.


I personally like Margaret MacMillan's books The War that Ended Peace and Paris 1919 which deal with the political steps toward the war and the attempts at a permanent peace, respectively.

For an accessible book that represents the expanse of WWI, I love Eugene Rogan's The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East.

The new hotness in WWI history right now is "Sleepwalkers", but that has a lot in common with the scope of Catastrophe 1914. It's mainly focused on the lead-up to the war, beginning with the turmoil in Eastern Europe around the start of the 20th Century and zooming into much more in-depth diplomatic history about why the war actually started. It's excellent (if you're into that sort of thing) and offers a long, gripping tick-tock that is much more up-to-date than the classic "Guns of August".

If you're interested in reading about the military conflict itself, it's hard to go wrong with Keegan's The First World War. It's a broad overview history of the war that is very readable and might give you some ideas of topics worth further diving into.