The Somme? Verdun? Flanders? I realized I had very little knowledge of the first terrible war that shaped the 20th century. Last year I read Barbara Tuchman's "Guns of August." I loved it but since it only concentrated on the summer of 1914, it made me yearn for a more comprehensive history of the Great War. "The First World War" by John Keegan is exactly what I wanted.

Keegan certainly assumes the reader has some sort of background and knowledge of the First World War, but I don't think it's necessary to have extensive knowledge before picking it up. While he doesn't go into as much detail as Tuchman (or else the book would be 2000+ pages!), he tells the story and battles of WWI in a very matter of fact manner but in a way that's interesting and not dry and boring like a lot of history novels. Keegan, despite being an Englishman, tells history in a non-biased manner. However, there's also a lot of trauma and sorrow surrounding the war (and rightly so) and he does his crown and country justice through beautiful prose of the more unfortunate and terrible battles of the empire, like Gallipoli and the Somme.

One part was hard to get through for me and it dealt with the Russian Revolution and counter-revolution and Germany's involvement after Russia pulled out of the war in 1918. I didn't get how it fit into the novel's relevance. Perhaps the biggest genius of John Keegan is this novel isn't a stand alone novel, he does a great job at tying it into greater European and international politics and economics. An argument I had never heard and that took Keegan a novel to complete, was that Bolshevik victory in Russia was because of Germany's support for it after the peace treaty at Brest-Litovsk, which charted the course for the rest of the events in the 20th century.

Great book, well written. Will definitely check out his novel on WWII and this will not be the last time I pick up this novel to read.