colin

This series has well and truly passed it's use by date; the author should have terminated the cycle with A meeting at Corvallis. There really is nothing good to say about this latest installment. The story drags with an almost pointless set of flashbacks taking up way too much space, and then the build up to the denouement culminates in the same rushed ending as in the previous book and an attempted cliffhanger.
The characters have become even shallower and the action sequences exceed their previous anime silliness.
A sad and dismal end to what could have been a great series. I will not be getting anything else by this author.

As reported by Ken, this brilliant book has been utterly mangled by poor editing of the download files. how this was achieved is difficult to imagine as the repeated sections and interruptions seem to happen almost randomly.
Do not buy until this has been fixed!

Save your credit. Anime silliness compounded by poor writing and incredible setting make this abomination a waste of time, space and credit.

The tangled web that is the origin of WW1 is brilliantly unravelled in this book. I have explored this topic over many years and volumes and have never found a clearer explanation of how the world slipped, inexorably, into the maelstrom.
Tuchman's style is, as always, lucid and to the point and the narrator carries the story in her own inimmitable way.
An all round good experience and highly recommnded to anyone wanting to understand how otherwise intelligent men got the world into such a mess.