Product Description

The First World War was the overwhelming disaster from which everything else in the twentieth century stemmed. Fourteen million combatants died, a further twenty million were wounded, four empires were destroyed and even the victors’ empires were fatally damaged. The sheer complexity and scale of the war have encouraged historians to write books on a similar scale. But now Norman Stone, one of Britain’s greatest historians, has achieved the almost impossible task of writing a terse, brilliantly written, opinionated and witty short history of the conflict. In only 140 pages he distils a lifetime of teaching, arguing and thinking into what will be one of the most talked about history books of years to come.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #182175 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-27
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Andrew Roberts
`Stunning ... no one else writes history quite like he does'

History Today
`A corker of a book ... brings more clarity to this complex, much-written about subject than some historians manage to do in books three or four times as long'

Spectator
'Bold, provocative and witty ... one of the outstanding historians of our age'

Customer Reviews

Highly readable but flawed
The great merits of this book are that it is eminently readable, short (2 sessions at most) and very thought-provoking. Stone's key trigger event for the outbreak of war (the Italian annexation of Libya in 1912 leading the Balkan states to think that they too could throw off Ottoman rule, which in turn led to a stronger Serbia clashing with Austria-Hungary) had never occurred to me before. And Stone's one 'what if' moment in WW1 is not on the Western or Eastern front but on the Italian front.

But this book has flaws. There remain irritating inaccuracies (eg he refers to the infamous Zimmerman telegram inviting the Mexicans to involve 'the Mikado of Japan' in their anti-US alliance - this is not a term generally used by any reputable academic to describe the Japanese emperor). But the biggest and most jaw-dropping failure of this book is the way it glosses over the murder of over half a million - and possibly as many as a million - Armenians in 1915. Stone has always been an apologist for Turkey, which is of course where he lives part of the time, but to describe the Armenian 'genocide' (I use this word advisedly) as a "few massacres of deportees" (my paraphrase of his position) without giving any degree of the scale of the atrocity is shocking in my view.

Distilled Water From A Stone
Norman Stone is a bit of an academic rascal given to tweaking noses and thumbing his own so it is pretty much guaranteed that much of what he says in this highly readable book will annoy somebody somewhere. I remember A J P Taylor putting my great-uncle in a dreadful bate in much the same way. This is a short history but it is not a standard history. The first precludes any explanation of deviation from the second. If you want to know what others think then you will have to read their books too.

Because Stone's knowledge is considerable he can distill and analyse in ways denied to lesser historians. Working at this level, far above the detail he works without a safety net. I imagine entertaining counter-blasts are currently being prepared in the sacred groves of Academe.

As a lay reader the whole book was great fun, its brevity permitted it to make interesting comparisons that are missed out in the richness of (say) Strachan. I would recommend it to all who enjoy entertaining history in the manner of a tutorial, but perhaps not to those who prefer detailed history in the form of a thesis.

Blurred distinction between facts and interpretations
Norman Stone is a historian specialising mainly in Modern History. He is best known for his survey books on aspects of World War One (The Eastern Front 1914-1917), on Hitler (Hitler: An Introduction, jointly with J. Plumb) and, more recently, "A Short History of the World" (with H.G. Wells).

The aim of such "Short Histories" is to provide the reader with a general survey of the bare facts, to identify open questions and, possibly, to give references to discussions of these questions.

My main objection to "World War One: A Short History" is then the manner in which it incorporates revisionist views into the description of the events. There is nothing wrong with alternative views, but they belong to more specialised works where they can be expounded with a breadth of argumentation sufficient to counter more established interpretations. The problem is that this is not done in this book and it cannot possibly happen in a "Short History".

As a result, the author's views are presented in such a way that they can be easily misconstrued as generally accepted opinions among the experts. Therefore, it is hard for the reader who just wants to be informed about the basic outline and significant events WWI to separate the facts from interpretations. Even worse, it can be hard to separate facts from non-mainstream interpretations which, in the long run, may or may not prevail among historian but, for the time being, they are just opinions.

The "Atlas of World War I" by Sir Martin Gilbert is perhaps a better place to start for those interested in a standard and highly respected history of WWI.