The First World War, Volume One: To Arms [Paperback]

This is the first book as most readers are aware of a multi-volume set, a work in progress, by the author Hew Strachan. He is a well known Oxford professor and prior history author, especially on World War I. This book is not recommended for someone wanting a quick introduction to the war. There are other books that give a combination of picture and text review of the complete war in under 500-700 pages by for example Martin Gilbert and his book The First world War: A Complete History or The First World War by John Keegan. There are others. Also one can read for example just a map and picture books, or pick another short text only overview books, strategy and troop movement books, and there are books that contain different sorts of analysis such as just the financial impact or the politics, or the naval actions, or just one counties activities. The present book attempts to do it all at perhaps at a less detailed level but with a lot of discussion and analysis. I have been researching of the subject if WWI books and put together a brief albeit incomplete and imperfect list of books that give a sampling of what is on the market and in libraries - 25 books Listmania list.

After reading a number of books on WWI, I still like the book The Western Front by Malcolm Brown from the Imperial War Museum of Books series. That is a quick light read about 300 pages, very engrossing, and gives many insights into what people did, how they acted, and what they thought, especially the participants at a lower level, i.e.: the individual men and women in the battles. It is excellent for a general reader but does not tell the whole story.

I bought about 6 books after visiting a number of book stores including this book. I thought that the present book by Strachan is one of the best current books, perhaps the best. It takes the reader to the next level of general detail and analysis. It is not a quick read and for myself I approached this book as a series of short stories, each one that can be read and digested on its own. Again, it is not just a re-telling of the story of the war. It is a historical analysis. It is not a book that most will sit in one setting that I think will take most readers at least 1 to 2 weeks straight in one read, reading 100 to 200 pages per day to cover all 1139 pages of text plus the seven page introduction. Although the book is mainly text it does contain 31 maps and a 50 page bibliography - so you can follow or find virtually every important source reference. He has almost 1200 source references to other articles and books.

The present book covers the early days of the war, mainly the first year but there are parts of the book that cover longer periods and the author adds a brief analysis of the war at the end of the book in an attempt to bring everything together. As noted by the author and other writers, the lead up to and the first few months of the war were perhaps the most interesting parts of the war, so this book covers in detail many important aspects of the war, and what were the major trends and what was political thinking of the times.

In the book, the author presents a brief introduction and then two sections of 160 pages that covers the build up and political support for the war, going through most of the actions of the political figures, popular press, what others such as thought, i.e.; the madness that engulfed the times. There is a lot of analysis and commentary.

This is followed by a 120 page section on the western front, (almost half the size of Brown's complete book), an 80 page section with maps on the eastern front, then a long two section review of the naval actions, followed by sections on Africa and Turkey.

This is followed by lengthy sections on German strategy, war finances, and war production. Each of these sections is long and detailed.

The author does not simply re-tell the story per se. Again, he tries to describe the actions in the context of the times. He references many comments by others from that 1200 article bibliography and he presents and includes a lot of discussion on the dynamics, financing, politics, and the context of the events. The madness of WWI was not unique. The author attempts to explain the "madness", the war that followed, and link it to other historical events.

An unusual and excellent book that is very well written.