The Guns of August

De: Barbara W. Tuchman

Narrado por: Wanda McCaddon

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.

Tuchman masterfully portrays this transition from 19th to 20th Century, focusing on the turning point in the year 1914: the month leading up to the war and the first month of the war. With fine attention to detail, she reveals how and why the war started, and why it could have been stopped but wasn't, managing to make the story utterly suspenseful even when we already know the outcome.

©1990 Dr. Lester Tuchman (P)2005 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Reseñas de la Crítica

"More dramatic than fiction...a magnificent narrative - beautifully organized, elegantly phrased, skillfully paced...The product of painstaking and sophisticated research." (Chicago Tribune)

Everybody knew, and everybody was wrong.

As the world threw themselves into World War I, everybody was convinced that they could win the war in six weeks, or perhaps as much as six months. Everybody was certain that their own plans would be the one that won the day, and everybody was wrong.

Listen along as you see the end of the old world, the Victorian age of mankind, and are brought lurching into the modern twentieth century. Exceptional detail and insight into the events that literally reshaped the world for the rest of the century.

Slightly outdated, single sided perspective

If you want a lengthy account of the month of August 1914 from an Anglo-Saxon point of view, this book is for you.
While a lot of sources are cited, this is more of a narrative than a scientific account. It tells a good, if somewhat one-sided story. In this sense, the book feels a bit outdated as the last years of thinking about WWI are not reflected. In language and content, it is still in the tradition of the WWII generation, meaning more anti-German in spirit, language and interpretation of events than recent historians. If you don't mind this and you want to be entertained by history in a detailed account, this is a good (audio-)book.
About the audio: The narrative is likeably and I feel the speaker matches the writers style. Unfortunately the pronunciation of French and German is poor and where foreign accents in English are emulated from supposedly native Russian, German and French speakers it becomes simply annoying. Somebody who obviously does not speak these languages simply cannot bring across the accents properly (especially to someone like myself who is not a native speaker of English). It would have been a much better – if more costly – choice to have these parts spoken by foreign (and male) speakers to contrast narrative and citation.

Know your geography...

I just finished listening to this book and there's a lot to like. Focusing on such a short period of such a long war gives you some amazing insight into the thought processes, failures and successes of the leaders at that time.

Some people complained about the narrator's habit of speaking with accents for the various players, but I appreciated it because there are so many names being thrown around that sometimes it's hard to remember which side they are on. What IS annoying is all of the French phrases being tossed in there...but you start to ignore them after a while.

Also, you should find and study a good map of France, Belgium and Germany, because you will be totally lost unless you have an understanding where these battles took place.

Wonderful history

Some friends dislike Tuchman's writing, too crammed with facts. I like the full context she paints and am not too anxious to get to the punchline. She does pick people as good and bad at what the do, but in times of war, our strengths and faults are accentuated. Her doing so makes a good story and probably she is usually right. This book certainly explains how a month determined much of what the 20th century became. It would be interesting to read a german's account of this time.

Magnificent

Superb summary of the conditions that led to the war and its harrowing human cost.

One of the best history book I have ever read.

Because the large number of people and places involved, I always had a hard copy by my side when listening.