The First World War
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Narrated by:
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James Langton
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By:
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John Keegan
About this listen
The First World War created the modern world. A conflict of unprecedented ferocity, it abruptly ended the relative peace and prosperity of the Victorian era, unleashing such demons of the 20th century as mechanized warfare and mass death. It also helped to usher in the ideas that have shaped our times - modernism in the arts, new approaches to psychology and medicine, radical thoughts about economics and society - and in so doing shattered the faith in rationalism and liberalism that had prevailed in Europe since the Enlightenment. With The First World War, John Keegan, one of our most eminent military historians, fulfills a lifelong ambition to write the definitive account of the Great War for our generation.
Probing the mystery of how a civilization at the height of its achievement could have propelled itself into such a ruinous conflict, Keegan takes us behind the scenes of the negotiations among Europe's crowned heads (all of them related to one another by blood) and ministers, and their doomed efforts to defuse the crisis. He reveals how, by an astonishing failure of diplomacy and communication, a bilateral dispute grew to engulf an entire continent.
But the heart of Keegan's superb narrative is, of course, his analysis of the military conflict. With unequalled authority and insight, he recreates the nightmarish engagements whose names have become legend - Verdun, the Somme and Gallipoli among them - and sheds new light on the strategies and tactics employed, particularly the contributions of geography and technology. No less central to Keegan's account is the human aspect. He acquaints us with the thoughts of the intriguing personalities who oversaw the tragically unnecessary catastrophe - from heads of state like Russia's hapless tsar, Nicholas II, to renowned warmakers such as Haig, Hindenburg and Joffre. But Keegan reserves his most affecting personal sympathy for those whose individual efforts history has not recorded - "the anonymous millions, indistinguishably drab, undifferentially deprived of any scrap of the glories that by tradition made the life of the man-at-arms tolerable."
By the end of the war, three great empires - the Austro-Hungarian, the Russian and the Ottoman - had collapsed. But as Keegan shows, the devastation ex-tended over the entirety of Europe, and still profoundly informs the politics and culture of the continent today. His brilliant, panoramic account of this vast and terrible conflict is destined to take its place among the classics of world history.
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Critic reviews
"Eloquent.... Mr. Keegan captures the anamolous, even surreal quality of the war." —The New York Times
"The best one-volume account there is." —Civilization
"Elegantly written, clear, detailed, and omniscient.... Keegan is ...perhaps the best military historian of our day." —The New York Times Book Review
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Story
The German invasion of Poland on 1 September, 1939, designated as Fall Weiss (Case White), was the event that sparked the outbreak of World War II in Europe. The campaign has widely been described as a textbook example of Blitzkrieg, but it was actually a fairly conventional campaign as the Wehrmacht was still learning how to use its new Panzers and dive-bombers. The Polish military is often misrepresented as hopelessly obsolete and outclassed by the Wehrmacht, yet in fact it was well-equipped with modern weapons and armor.
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Surprise
- By Kindle Customer on 11-24-19
By: Robert Forczyk
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The Splintered Empires
- The Eastern Front 1917-21
- By: Prit Buttar
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 22 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Concluding his acclaimed series on the Eastern Front in World War I, Prit Buttar comprehensively details not only these climactic events, but also the "successor wars" that raged long after the armistice of 1918. New states rose from the ashes of empire and war raged as German forces sought to keep them under the aegis of the Fatherland. These unresolved tensions between the former Great Powers and the new states would ultimately lead to the rise of Hitler and a new, terrible world war only two decades later.
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Explains a lot about
- By Elizabeth on 02-27-20
By: Prit Buttar
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The Cambridge History of Warfare
- By: Geoffrey Parker
- Narrated by: Andrew Cullum
- Length: 21 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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The new edition of The Cambridge History of Warfare, written and updated by a team of eight distinguished military historians, examines how war was waged by Western powers across a sweeping timeframe beginning with classical Greece and Rome, moving through the Middle Ages and the early modern period, down to the wars of the 21st century in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.
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Too anglocentric
- By A. Siegel on 10-27-22
By: Geoffrey Parker
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Three Armies on the Somme
- The First Battle of the Twentieth Century
- By: William Philpott
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 26 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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On July 1, 1916, British and French forces launched the first attack on the German armies lined up along the Somme in what was to become the defining battle of World War I. To this day, July 1 is often remembered for being the bloodiest day in British military history. Indeed, the British suffered some 62,000 casualties in that one day of fighting alone. As gruesome as that statistic is, it's just one of the many dark legacies left by the Somme Offensive.
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An insightful and exhaustive analysis of the Somme
- By Anthony on 06-07-12
By: William Philpott
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The First World War: A Captivating Guide to World War 1, the Battle of Verdun and the Battle of Somme
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Desmond Manny, Colin Fluxman
- Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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If you want to discover captivating stories of people and events of World War 1, then pay attention...Three captivating manuscripts are included in this audiobook: World War 1: A Captivating Guide to the First World War; The Battle of Verdun: A Captivating Guide to the Longest and Largest Battle of World War 1; and The Battle of the Somme: A Captivating Guide to One of the Most Devastating Events of the First World War.
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No, Gavrilo Princip was NOT lynched!
- By Magnus Almgren on 12-31-19
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The Great War
- A Combat History of the First World War
- By: Peter Hart
- Narrated by: Roger Davis
- Length: 22 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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World War I altered the landscape of the modern world in every conceivable arena. Millions died; empires collapsed; new ideologies and political movements arose; poison gas, warplanes, tanks, submarines, and other technologies appeared. "Total war" emerged as a grim, mature reality. In The Great War, Peter Hart provides a masterful combat history of this global conflict.
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Horrible Listen
- By Eric Ring on 11-16-21
By: Peter Hart
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Frederick the Great
- A Military History
- By: Dennis Showalter
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 13 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Frederick the Great is one of history's most important leaders. Famed for his military successes and domestic reforms, his campaigns were a watershed in the history of Europe, securing Prussia's place as a continental power and inaugurating a new pattern of total war that was to endure until 1916. However, much myth surrounds this enigmatic man's personality and his role as politician, warrior, and king.
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Thrashed insensibly by over writing
- By Jeff Lacy on 09-27-20
By: Dennis Showalter
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The First World War
- A Complete History
- By: Martin Gilbert
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 33 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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It was to be the war to end all wars, and it began at 11:15 on the morning of June 28, 1914, in an outpost of the Austro-Hungarian Empire called Sarajevo. It would officially end nearly five years later. Unofficially, however, it has never ended: Many of the horrors we live with today are rooted in the First World War. The Great War left millions of civilians and soldiers maimed or dead. It also saw the creation of new technologies of destruction: tanks, planes, and submarines; machine guns and field artillery; poison gas and chemical warfare.
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Unbiased true facts of the first world war
- By troy a myers on 07-27-20
By: Martin Gilbert
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Defeat into Victory
- Battling Japan in Burma and India, 1942-1945
- By: Field-Marshal Viscount William Slim, David W. Hogan Jr. - introduction
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 23 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Field Marshal Viscount Slim (1891-1970) led shattered British forces from Burma to India in one of the lesser-known but more nightmarish retreats of World War II. He then restored his army's fighting capabilities and morale with virtually no support from home and counterattacked. His army's slaughter of Japanese troops ultimately liberated India and Burma.
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Excellent account of a theatre of ww2 that many Americans know little about of
- By Thomas W White on 01-06-24
By: Field-Marshal Viscount William Slim, and others
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The First World War
- By: Hew Strachan
- Narrated by: Clive Chafer
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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A century has passed since the outbreak of World War I, yet as military historian Hew Strachan argues in this brilliant and authoritative new book, the legacy of the "war to end all wars" is with us still. The First World War was a truly global conflict from the start, with many of the most decisive battles fought in or directly affecting the Balkans, Africa, and the Ottoman Empire. Even more than World War II, the First World War continues to shape the politics and international relations of our world.
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Outstanding narrative of the military action
- By Tad Davis on 04-30-17
By: Hew Strachan
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Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East
- By: David Stahel
- Narrated by: Stewart Crank
- Length: 17 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Using archival records, in this book, David Stahel presents a history of Germany's summer campaign from the perspective of the two largest and most powerful Panzer groups on the Eastern front. Stahel's research provides a fundamental reassessment of Germany's war against the Soviet Union, highlighting the prodigious internal problems of the vital Panzer forces and revealing that their demise in the earliest phase of the war undermined the whole German invasion.
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Best book on Operation Barbarossa so far
- By Amazon Customer on 09-14-21
By: David Stahel
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The Battle of the Somme: A Captivating Guide to One of the Most Devastating Events of the First World War That Took Place on the Western Front
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Colin Fluxman
- Length: 1 hr and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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The Battle of the Somme was a significant battle for all those who took part, but it was especially important for the British because it was the first time in World War One that they were forced to shoulder the main responsibility for an offensive, and they did not have enough time to fully prepare for the assault.
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tragic tale told by a master.
- By WalterZamora on 09-05-19
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Poland 1939
- The Outbreak of World War II
- By: Roger Moorhouse
- Narrated by: Roger Moorhouse
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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For Americans, World War II began in December of 1941, with the bombing of Pearl Harbor; but for Poland, the war began on September 1, 1939, when Hitler's soldiers invaded, followed later that month by Stalin's Red Army. The conflict that followed saw the debut of many of the features that would come to define the later war-blitzkrieg, the targeting of civilians, ethnic cleansing, and indiscriminate aerial bombing-yet it is routinely overlooked by historians.
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Always Overlooked
- By C. G. Telcontar on 05-27-21
By: Roger Moorhouse
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It was to be the war to end all wars, and it began at 11:15 on the morning of June 28, 1914, in an outpost of the Austro-Hungarian Empire called Sarajevo. It would officially end nearly five years later. Unofficially, however, it has never ended: Many of the horrors we live with today are rooted in the First World War. The Great War left millions of civilians and soldiers maimed or dead. It also saw the creation of new technologies of destruction: tanks, planes, and submarines; machine guns and field artillery; poison gas and chemical warfare.
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For the past half century, John Keegan, the greatest military historian of our time, has been returning to the scenes of America’s most bloody and wrenching war to ponder its lingering conundrums: the continuation of fighting for four years between such vastly mismatched sides; the dogged persistence of ill-trained, ill-equipped, and often malnourished combatants; the effective absence of decisive battles among some two to three hundred known to us by name.
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A Novel Approach (As Opposed to Novelistic)
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The First World War
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A century has passed since the outbreak of World War I, yet as military historian Hew Strachan argues in this brilliant and authoritative new book, the legacy of the "war to end all wars" is with us still. The First World War was a truly global conflict from the start, with many of the most decisive battles fought in or directly affecting the Balkans, Africa, and the Ottoman Empire. Even more than World War II, the First World War continues to shape the politics and international relations of our world.
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Outstanding narrative of the military action
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A World Undone
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On a summer day in 1914, a nineteen-year-old Serbian nationalist gunned down Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. While the world slumbered, monumental forces were shaken. In less than a month, a combination of ambition, deceit, fear, jealousy, missed opportunities, and miscalculation sent Austro-Hungarian troops marching into Serbia, German troops streaming toward Paris, and a vast Russian army into war, with England as its ally. As crowds cheered their armies on, no one could guess what lay ahead in the First World War.
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A great book!
- By Jodi Bernard on 07-11-23
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The Guns of August
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In this Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, historian Barbara Tuchman brings to life the people and events that led up to World War I. This was the last gasp of the Gilded Age, of Kings and Kaisers and Czars, of pointed or plumed hats, colored uniforms, and all the pomp and romance that went along with war. How quickly it all changed...and how horrible it became.
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Wonderful
- By Mike From Mesa on 10-28-08
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The War That Ended Peace
- The Road to 1914
- By: Margaret MacMillan
- Narrated by: Richard Burnip
- Length: 31 hrs and 58 mins
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From the best-selling and award-winning author of Paris 1919 comes a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, a fascinating portrait of Europe from 1900 up to the outbreak of World War I.
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Detailed review of 1882 to 1914
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It was to be the war to end all wars, and it began at 11:15 on the morning of June 28, 1914, in an outpost of the Austro-Hungarian Empire called Sarajevo. It would officially end nearly five years later. Unofficially, however, it has never ended: Many of the horrors we live with today are rooted in the First World War. The Great War left millions of civilians and soldiers maimed or dead. It also saw the creation of new technologies of destruction: tanks, planes, and submarines; machine guns and field artillery; poison gas and chemical warfare.
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Unbiased true facts of the first world war
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The American Civil War
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For the past half century, John Keegan, the greatest military historian of our time, has been returning to the scenes of America’s most bloody and wrenching war to ponder its lingering conundrums: the continuation of fighting for four years between such vastly mismatched sides; the dogged persistence of ill-trained, ill-equipped, and often malnourished combatants; the effective absence of decisive battles among some two to three hundred known to us by name.
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A Novel Approach (As Opposed to Novelistic)
- By margot on 11-18-12
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A century has passed since the outbreak of World War I, yet as military historian Hew Strachan argues in this brilliant and authoritative new book, the legacy of the "war to end all wars" is with us still. The First World War was a truly global conflict from the start, with many of the most decisive battles fought in or directly affecting the Balkans, Africa, and the Ottoman Empire. Even more than World War II, the First World War continues to shape the politics and international relations of our world.
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Outstanding narrative of the military action
- By Tad Davis on 04-30-17
By: Hew Strachan
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A World Undone
- The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918
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On a summer day in 1914, a nineteen-year-old Serbian nationalist gunned down Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. While the world slumbered, monumental forces were shaken. In less than a month, a combination of ambition, deceit, fear, jealousy, missed opportunities, and miscalculation sent Austro-Hungarian troops marching into Serbia, German troops streaming toward Paris, and a vast Russian army into war, with England as its ally. As crowds cheered their armies on, no one could guess what lay ahead in the First World War.
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A great book!
- By Jodi Bernard on 07-11-23
By: G. J. Meyer
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The Guns of August
- By: Barbara W. Tuchman
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 19 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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In this Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, historian Barbara Tuchman brings to life the people and events that led up to World War I. This was the last gasp of the Gilded Age, of Kings and Kaisers and Czars, of pointed or plumed hats, colored uniforms, and all the pomp and romance that went along with war. How quickly it all changed...and how horrible it became.
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Wonderful
- By Mike From Mesa on 10-28-08
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From the best-selling and award-winning author of Paris 1919 comes a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, a fascinating portrait of Europe from 1900 up to the outbreak of World War I.
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Detailed review of 1882 to 1914
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The First World War
- A Very Short Introduction
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By the time the First World War ended in 1918, eight million people had died in what had been perhaps the most apocalyptic episode the world had known. This Very Short Introduction audiobook provides a concise and insightful history of the Great War - from the state of Europe in 1914, to the role of the US, the collapse of Russia, and the eventual surrender of the Central Powers.
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A very quick synopsis
- By Anonymous User on 11-22-22
By: Michael Howard
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The Great War
- A Combat History of the First World War
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- Narrated by: Roger Davis
- Length: 22 hrs and 56 mins
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World War I altered the landscape of the modern world in every conceivable arena. Millions died; empires collapsed; new ideologies and political movements arose; poison gas, warplanes, tanks, submarines, and other technologies appeared. "Total war" emerged as a grim, mature reality. In The Great War, Peter Hart provides a masterful combat history of this global conflict.
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Horrible Listen
- By Eric Ring on 11-16-21
By: Peter Hart
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Catastrophe 1914
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From the acclaimed military historian, a new history of the outbreak of World War I: the dramatic stretch from the breakdown of diplomacy to the battles - the Marne, Ypres, Tannenberg - that marked the frenzied first year before the war bogged down in the trenches. In Catastrophe 1914, Max Hastings gives us a conflict different from the familiar one of barbed wire, mud, and futility.
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I thought I knew the battle of the frontiers
- By Anonymous User on 04-02-21
By: Max Hastings
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The American Civil War
- By: Gary W. Gallagher, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Gary W. Gallagher
- Length: 24 hrs and 37 mins
- Original Recording
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Between 1861 and 1865, the clash of the greatest armies the Western hemisphere had ever seen turned small towns, little-known streams, and obscure meadows in the American countryside into names we will always remember. In those great battles, those streams ran red with blood-and the United States was truly born.
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Excellent Series
- By Rodney on 07-09-13
By: Gary W. Gallagher, and others
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A History of Warfare
- By: John Keegan
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 19 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Starting with the premise that all civilizations owe their origins to warmaking, Keegan probes the meanings, motivations, and methods underlying war in different societies over the course of more than two thousand years. Following the progress of human aggression in its full historical sweep, from the strangely ritualistic combat of Stone Age peoples to the warfare of mass destruction in the present age, his illuminating and lively narrative gives us all the world's great warrior cultures.
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Not what I expected
- By Mark on 12-05-06
By: John Keegan
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The Second World War: A Complete History
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- Narrated by: Bernard Mayes
- Length: 43 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Martin Gilbert, the official biographer of Winston Churchill, offers a complete history of World War II. It began with the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. By the time it came to an end on V-Day - August 14, 1945 - it had involved every major power, and had become global in its reach. In the final accounting, it would turn out to be - in both human terms and material resources - the costliest war in history, taking the lives of forty-six million people.
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A Catalog of Atrocities, Ignores the Japanese
- By Doc G on 02-28-19
By: Martin Gilbert
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Pandora’s Box
- A History of the First World War
- By: Jorn Leonhard, Patrick Camiller - translator
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 39 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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In this monumental history of the First World War, Germany's leading historian of the 20th century's first great catastrophe explains the war's origins, course, and consequences. With an unrivaled combination of depth and global reach, Pandora's Box reveals how profoundly the war shaped the world to come. Jörn Leonhard treats the clash of arms with a sure feel for grand strategy, the everyday tactics of dynamic movement and slow attrition, the race for ever more destructive technologies, and the grim experiences of frontline soldiers.
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Excellent reading of a complex book
- By chris on 02-26-19
By: Jorn Leonhard, and others
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The Pity of War
- Explaining World War I
- By: Niall Ferguson
- Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm
- Length: 21 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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The Pity of War makes a simple and provocative argument: the human atrocity known as the Great War was entirely England's fault. According to Niall Ferguson, England entered into war based on naive assumptions of German aims, thereby transforming a Continental conflict into a world war, which it then badly mishandled, necessitating American involvement. The war was not inevitable, Ferguson argues, but rather was the result of the mistaken decisions of individuals who would later claim to have been in the grip of huge impersonal forces.
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Ferguson wouldn’t know history if it hit him in the head
- By Schen on 10-07-20
By: Niall Ferguson
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The Western Front
- A History of the Great War, 1914-1918
- By: Nick Lloyd
- Narrated by: Mark Elstob
- Length: 20 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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The Western Front evokes images of mud-spattered men in waterlogged trenches, shielded from artillery blasts and machine-gun fire by a few feet of dirt. This iconic setting was the most critical arena of the Great War. In this epic narrative history, the first volume in a groundbreaking trilogy on the Great War, Nick Lloyd captures the horrific fighting on the Western Front beginning with the surprise German invasion of Belgium in August 1914 and taking us to the Armistice of November 1918.
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Incisive Overview
- By J.Brock on 01-19-22
By: Nick Lloyd
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The Face of Battle
- By: John Keegan
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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In this major and wholly original contribution to military history, John Keegan reverses the usual convention of writing about war in terms of generals and nations in conflict, which tends to leave the common soldier as cipher. Instead, he focuses on what a set battle is like for the man in the thick of it.
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Amazing! But probably better in print.
- By D. Martin on 04-20-13
By: John Keegan
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The Second World War
- By: Antony Beevor
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett
- Length: 39 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Over the past two decades, Antony Beevor has established himself as one of the world's premier historians of World War II. His multi-award winning books have included Stalingrad and The Fall of Berlin 1945. Now, in his newest and most ambitious book, he turns his focus to one of the bloodiest and most tragic events of the twentieth century, The Second World War. Thrillingly written and brilliantly researched, Beevor's provocative account is destined to become the definitive work on World War II.
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It Fills in Gaps I Didn't Know Existed
- By DJM on 07-31-12
By: Antony Beevor
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The Story of World War II
- By: Donald L. Miller, Henry Steele Commager
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 24 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Drawing on previously unpublished eyewitness accounts, prizewinning historian Donald L. Miller has written what critics are calling one of the most powerful accounts of warfare ever published. Here are the horror and heroism of World War II in the words of the men who fought it, the journalists who covered it, and the civilians who were caught in its fury. Miller gives us an up-close, deeply personal view of a war that was more savagely fought - and whose outcome was in greater doubt - than one might imagine. This is the war that Americans on the home front would have read about had they had access to previously censored testimony.
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INCREDIBLE! WELL-RESEARCHED, COMPLETE & UNBIASED!
- By The Louligan on 07-15-14
By: Donald L. Miller, and others
What listeners say about The First World War
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Jeffrey
- 01-26-23
Must read for all students
This should be mandatory reading for all students. A very in-depth depiction of the Great War.
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- Amazon Customer
- 01-04-23
Thorough but interesting account of WWI
I thought I knew this history, but this book revealed I had much to learn.
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- Tom
- 07-21-23
Hard to know the forest from the trees at times
Without ready access to maps, it’s sometimes hard to follow the action since geography plays such a huge part in understanding this epic. Well read, but sometimes hard to
understand the big picture with all the moving parts — military, as well as political, social, and economic.
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- Jasmine
- 02-20-24
Facts and figures
It was devastating to hear the facts and figures for loss of life. I really appreciated how each of the sections was organized.
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- Stephen F (SPFJR)
- 06-13-19
Best Military History of First World War
“So...what non-fiction book about The First World War should I read?”.
Answering this question is the purpose of this review.
I will review Keegan’s book in that light. This topic is so vast and there are so many BAD books that it is important to start with the right book to sustain your interest in the topic.
As of 2023, I own 45x books on The Great War (aka World War One); I can say that IMHO this is the best ‘single-volume MILITARY history’ of the First World War. This is no surprise since John Keegan is generally regarded as the gold standard for authors of military history. He is best known for his first book, the indisputable classic, ‘The Face of Battle’, and since then he had a stellar career with hit after hit in the military history genre. This book, THE FIRST WORLD WAR, was his most commercially successful book and for good reason... The only book which compares is "The Great War" by Peter Hart.
(Keegan gives a similar treatment to the 1861 American Civil War & 2003 Iraq War in audible titles.)
Now that I’ve established that this is the best single volume military history on the market in print or in audiobook, it is important to understand the areas where this book is surpassed by others due to a specialty different from military history or a difference in length or scope.
***For general readers with no background knowledge, who want a highly readable single-volume book on the WHOLE war, I highly recommend ‘A World Undone’ by G.J. Meyer as the best place to start.***
Other Best-in-Class Single-Volume NONFICTION books on Audible (in no particular order) are:
1. ‘Pandora’s Box’ (Leonhard) for GENERAL History... like Meyer’s book but longer.
2. ‘Over Here’ (Kennedy) for DOMESTIC aspects of the war as it affected the USA.
3. ‘Castles of Steel’ (Massie) for NAVAL history with a strict scope of the war years (1914-1918). This strict scope is because Massie already wrote a classic on the PRE-war naval arms race between Great British Empire and German Empire called *DREADNOUGHT. Each title is thorough. Together, these two books represent a comprehensive naval history of the conflict which is very exciting and filled with personality.
*Note: Dreadnought is not yet available on Audible as of October 2023. (Note to Audible: Record DREADNOUGHT!)
4. ‘The Pity of War’ (Ferguson) for ECONOMIC history of the war. This is an excellent book, but its thesis is beyond the bounds of descriptive history and goes into the realm of "Great Britain never should have fought this war..." Many historians dislike this alternative timeline view of history for good reason, but that doesn't take away from the author's accomplishment.
5. ‘July 1914’ (McMeekin) for the JULY CRISIS which precipitated the war’s outbreak. This is a well-researched forensic breakdown.
6. ‘The War That Ended Peace’ (MacMillan) on the JULY CRISIS but with a focus on the decades leading up to it, balancing factors leading to war vs. peace. Prior to this war, Europe had achieved a full century without a general conflict. Why was war the outcome of this crisis when peace had prevailed in so many previous European political crises? Both proximate and ultimate causes are considered.
7. ‘Paris 1919’ (MacMillan) for the definitive history of the war’s CONCLUSION and the diplomatic calculus behind closed doors at the Paris peace conference which settled this brutal war.
8. ‘The Long Shadow’ (Reynolds) for LONG TERM IMPACT of the war in Europe & Russia leading to the Second World War, in the Middle East where today’s problems were born, and in bringing the USA into the world stage.
9. ‘The First World War’ (Gilbert) is the whole war (like Meyer), but with a relentless focus on notable individual accounts. Recommended for readers who typically enjoy fiction books since this is like 500x very short vivid accounts supporting the overall story of the war.
10. ‘The Guns of August’ (Tuchman) for an account of the JULY CRISIS and the OUTBREAK of the war (first month). A highly readable classic. Probably the most famous WW1 non-fiction book.
11. ‘The Great War in Modern Memory’ (Fussell) for analysis of the war’s impact on culture, literature, film, poetry, vocabulary, and values. This is a niche book but considered a classic of the criticism genre.
Book #10 & #11 regularly make Top 100 all-time lists for English non-fiction titles.
John Keegan’s book covers all of these angles in depths which vary from several pages to a whole chapter and I never felt like he skimped on a topic too much. He did a great job balancing many aspects in a single volume.
Audible vs. Hardcover
John Keegan’s writing style contains many modifying phrases (and modifiers of a modifier) so it can be difficult to comprehend sentence structure on a first pass. Audible fixes this problem by the performer’s speaking style and intonation. He reads it the way the author intentded on the first pass. This is one aspect where the Audible spoken version is clearly superior to the written version... for me. Here is an example from page 52...
“Had Austria moved at once, therefore, without seeking Germany’s endorsement, it is possible, perhaps probable, that the Serbs would have found themselves as isolated strategically as, initially, they were morally, and so forced to capitulate to the Austrian ultimatum.” (I have to read that sort of sentence twice but a narrator glides me through it just as the author intended.)
Other excellent titles of interest NOT available by Audible (yet):
World Crisis (Churchill; Note that Audible only has the first of the five volumes.), My Experience in the World War (American Supreme Commander: Pershing), Coming of the War 1914 (Schmitt), Triple Alliance and Triple Entente (Schmitt 1934...VERY SHORT), Dreadnought (Massie), Ring of Steel (Watson), July 1914 (Geiss).
Note: These first 4 titles were written during the interwar period so authors have no knowledge of the looming Second World War. This makes for a different perspective from post-1940 titles.
I hope this review helps put some context around John Keegan’s excellent book about a grand historical topic.
If you like the way Mr. Keegan writes, I recommend his other books, especially ‘The Face of Battle’ and ‘A History of War’... both available on Audible.
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- david
- 01-04-21
An incredible look into the past
The narration of the story was first class. Never knowing much about the first world war, this book gave me a detailed look into how it began, the different reasons for every nation involved as well as a firm and clear description of battle plans and outcomes for all sides. I would recommend this book for anyone who loves history who does not know much about the first world war. It left me more knowledgeable than before and frankly more sad than ever before when discussing the first world war. Way too many lives lost and nothing resolved until 30 years later after the conclusion of the second world war.
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- Don B.
- 10-30-23
Phase 1 of the 20th century war
I Ingrid presentation of what led to the Great War, which, in reality was phase 1 of the 20th century war. World war two was phase 2, and the cold war, phase 3. We have here presented a clear account of the lead up to this essentially unnecessary war. It is interesting to compare Keegan’s description of the events with Churchill’s the World Crisis. And Mr. Keegan’s account is more a big picture of you, while Churchill’s is more focused on the events in which he was a direct participant for the most part . Having listened to these two books, I am inspired to dig farther into the great war in which my grandfather participated on the western front with an artillery battery. He was partially disabled as a result of a gas attack.
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- Kindle Customer
- 12-19-23
the excellent narrative
Great book..Keegan is always a great read his scholarship is of the of the highest order...Highly Recommend
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- WSteven1
- 06-12-24
clarity of and depth of understanding
this tome greatly enhanced my understanding of The Great War and how it still influences ourr world.
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- grimm79
- 01-11-21
Voluminous, though well-selected info
I find those histories easiest to follow that go in chronological order. While this book did that in a general way, it did hop around a bit, making it a little hard for me at times to get a sense of the plot, in an already complex war.
The narrator, while embibing most of his phrases with a sense of clear meaning, far too often effected his cadences in the same tapering off hum-drum lilt, which quite often was inappropriate to the drama of the actual words. Lada-de-da, and an entire brigade got wiped out.
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