The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914

Margaret Macmillan is Canadian historian who is teaching at Oxford University. She is the great-granddaughter of David Lloyd George, Britain’s wartime Prime Minister. I recently read Max Hastings “Catastrophe 1914”. He and Macmillan are coving the same nine months leading up to the war. Hasting covered the role of general staff of rival governments showing a step by step documentation leading up to war. MacMillan on the other hand covers the diplomats and politicians showing step by step how they had avoided war numerous time and why this occasion they failed. Even though Macmillan’s book is scholarly it is very readable. She has the ability to evoke the world at the beginning of the 20th Century, when Europe had gone 85 years without a general war between great powers. In these years there was an explosion of production, wealth and a transformation in society and the way people lived. Food was better and cheaper, dramatic advances in hygiene and medicine, faster communications including cheap public telegraphs. Macmillan asks “why would Europe want to throw it all away?” In the middle of the book Macmillan considers the larger context within which the final approach to war occurred. She is good at painting the intellectual background of “social Darwinism.” The author does a good job dealing with the July crisis and distributes the responsibility widely. It was created by Serbia irresponsibility, Austrian vengefulness, and the “Blank check” the Kaiser issued to Vienna. She recognizes how Britain’s, French and especially Russian actions exacerbated the crisis and rejects the view that this was a German pre-emptive strike, a “flight forward” from domestic strife into war, while arguing that German politics recklessly and knowingly risked war. I think she is right on both counts. Macmillan makes it clear wars are not inevitable there are always choices. Richard Burnip did an excellent job narrating this 32 hour book. This book is a must for anyone interested in WWI history.

I am making my way through as many Audible books about World War I as I can in this anniversary year (2014). I started with Margaret MacMillan's for deep background and it fulfilled its purpose admirably. The narrator spoke clearly enough that I could listen at 1.5 speed and understand everything.

I especially valued the scope of the book, as it covered cultural and general societal issues as well as the political and economic and military. The portraits of the important people, from Edward VII to the Kaiser and the Tsar, Edward Gray, Moltke, Konrad, and the French were vivid enough to help them come to life.

The writing is above average but not quite literary. Occasional references to more recent events, from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the American response to 911 actually annoyed me, though many readers might find them interesting.

After listening to this book I went next to Barbara Tuchman's "The Guns of August." Tuchman is an outstanding writer and her coverage of the battles from August 4 through September 7 of 1914 is riveting. Tuchman is criticized for some historical errors and I may detect them as I turn to the other books on my list, but reading it made a helpful match with the MacMillan book. I recommend listening to both.

Now on my list is "A World Undone," by G. J. Meyer after which I will listen to Paul Ham's 1914: The Year the World Ended, and then Max Hastings' Catastrophe 1914: The Year Europe Went to War.

Then I will listen to MacMillan's history of the aftermath of the war with Paris 1919. I will update this review if possible so I can compare all these available titles.

This is an historical narrative that reads like a thriller and makes one feel we are living the events but at the same time allows us to understand them from a broader and deeper perspective. I wish all history books were like this! Great narration to boot!

I will continue reading this book on Kindle edition but Richard Burnip is a strangely bad narrator. After two excellent narrators in a row in Michael Maloney and David Rintoul, it is difficult to switch to an oddball like Richard Burnip who often sounds like one of those guys selling something on TV in the middle of the night. David Rintoul would have been brilliant in this book, which is a serious study of the origins of World War I. Richard Burnip exaggerates the wrong words and sounds phony all the time. Not sure why he was hired for this.

It's no wonder.... that this audiobook... runs 32 hours.... It might seem, surprising... "Sure" you say... It's an 800 page book. Of course it runs a bit... long. Perhaps though... We should compare another tome... of equal length. Empire of Liberty... also an 800 page book... (I've rounded up a few pages.... here... and there... ) has an audiobook recording at 31 hours. So perhaps... that's about an hour of silence. The Third Reich in Power has an equal audio book running time... at 32 hours. And yet... the hardback book is 960 pages long. Certainly there are differences to be accounted for... typeset.... margins.... illustrations.... the comparison cannot be... exact... and yet, the main point is... this narration is not just... to put the point bluntly... dull... but it's also infuriatingly unlistenable.