The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman; narrated by Wanda McCaddon | 2008; originally published 1962 | Blackstone Audio | Audiobook $ 34.75
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.
I know very little about WWI, though it had an immense impact on the trajectory of the twentieth century; so, I thought it’d be appropriate to add this title to my list for Classics Club.
The book discusses the beginning of the war, from the international political landscape leading up to the conflict through the first battles of August 1914. The first several chapters discuss both the interpersonal relations of some of the world’s most powerful people at the time and their various military philosophies, including details about their pre-war maneuvering and planning.
It seems that everyone somehow held two conflicting dogmas; that war couldn’t happen because it would necessarily destroy the global economic system upon which everyone depended for prosperity, and that war was inevitable because the balance of power was too tenuous and an arms race was already in progress.
The remainder of the book is devoted to military actions and plans, sometimes in overly minute detail. The author devotes the majority of these chapters to the conflicts on the Western Front, with only brief mention of the Eastern Front (and entirely giving up any attempt to discuss the mess happening in the Balkans).
I have to be honest here; I could barely finish the book. It started off strong, with plenty of interesting insight into the cultural, personal, and political factors that contributed to the conflict. The thought processes and miscalculations behind certain alliances and rivalries, as well as the flawed military philosophies that would form the foundations of the earliest battles, were fascinating to me. But once the book began to get into the nitty-gritty bits of troop maneuvers and telegrams getting sent or getting lost to and from headquarters and commanders butting heads or whatever, I started to lose interest.
I can really only recommend this book as a whole if you’re very into the specifics of military actions. If the higher-level stuff about what led up to the war and why it became essentially unstoppable so quickly is more interesting to you, the first part of the book is wonderful; just be ready to skim through the rest.
Links:
- Review at Kirkus
- Articles by Barbara W. Tuchman at American Heritage Magazine
- Biography from the Jewish Women’s Archive
- Barbara W. Tuchman Papers at Yale University Library
- Profile of narrator Wanda McCaddon from AudioFile Magazine
Publication information: Tuchman, Barbara W. The guns of August. Ashland, OR: Blackstone Audio, 2008. Audiobook.
Source: Public library, via Overdrive/Libby.
Disclaimer: I am not compensated, monetarily or otherwise, for reviews of books or other products.
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