The Price of Glory

Verdun 1916

By: Alistair Horne

Narrated by: John Lee

The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916 is the second book of Alistair Horne's trilogy, which includes The Fall of Paris and To Lose a Battle and tells the story of the great crises of the rivalry between France and Germany.

The battle of Verdun lasted ten months. It was a battle in which at least 700,000 men fell, along a front of fifteen miles. Its aim was less to defeat the enemy than bleed him to death and a battleground whose once fertile terrain is even now a haunted wilderness. Alistair Horne's classic work, continuously in print for over fifty years, is a profoundly moving, sympathetic study of the battle and the men who fought there. It shows that Verdun is a key to understanding the First World War to the minds of those who waged it, the traditions that bound them, and the world that gave them the opportunity.

©1962, 1964, 1993 Alistair Horne (P)2023 Tantor

The narrator was very good with the different players.

I read it in 1965 and twice since 1993. This is the second time I listened with audible. Superb insight and detailed description of the characters and terrain, political and cultural, social issues contemporary to the time.

Excellent discussion of the battle

The book contains a lot of details about the battle. There are details about the events as well as the individuals involved. There is a good discussion of what happened to some of the major figures after the battle and after the war, as well as a description of some of the locations of the battle.

Great telling of a grim event

Alistair Horne did a great job laying out the conditions surrounding the Battle of Verdun and the players involved. He paints a clear picture using excerpts from memoirs, dairies, and other first hand sources. The narrative pulled me in and never lost me. John Lee is a great narrator, and he bring it all to life.

Riveting, Tragic, Eye-Opening

A truly comprehensive recounting of the battle of verdun. The tragedy of the event as well as the heroism of the soldiers on both sides are captured in the writing and outstanding performance by John Lee. A masterpiece of a work and a poignant reminder of the scale of suffering that occurred in the war.

Old classic must read

Fabulous narration of a rich and gripping narrative history of WW1s greatest, longest, bloodiest battle. Thoughtful summation of the meeting of such awesome killing technologies and tactics developed and available in time to demonstrate the futility of the effort by Germany and France to fully exploit them, sacrificing an entire generation of young men. The. Dawn of modernity in warfare writ large.