Catastrophe 1914

With a steady and authoritative voice, Simon Vance gives a splendid reading of Hastings's overview of the causes of "The Great War," as well as his account of its first six months. While this work is clearly a popular history, it's more detailed than Tuchman's GUNS OF AUGUST and brings out many facts that have been learned since her work was published. At the end of the work the author also presents a rebuttal to those who claim it didn't matter who won the war; he strongly defends the rightness of the cause of France, Great Britain, and their allies. Vance has a distinguished voice, and his delivery of this long and detailed work sounds effortless, making it well worth investing one's time in listening. M.T.F. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

October 7, 2013
Hastings's latest invites consideration as the best in his distinguished career, combining a perceptive analysis of the Great War's beginnings with a vivid account of the period from August to September of the titular year. Those were the months when illusions died alongside hundreds of thousands of people. Hastings (Inferno) considers Germany principally responsible for starting the war, asserting that German victory would have meant that "freedom, justice and democracy would have paid a dreadful forfeit." Hastings notes, "Every society experienced successive waves of jubilation and dejection," a condition shared by the generals and the politicians who found war easier to initiate than to resolve. He is particularly successful at reconstructing war-zone fiascoes from the perspectives of those who bore their bruntâthe soldiers on the frontlines. On the front lines, "foolish excess of personal bravery" was juxtaposed with questions like, "Won't the murdering soon stop?" While "rape, pillage, and arson" were commonplace, "new technologies created many opportunities and difficulties"âbut far more of the latter. The fighting around Ypres, Belgium, in October and November epitomized both the combatants' determination and their "unbounded power to inflict loss and grief upon each other." "There was never a credible shortcut" to the suicide of a civilization. Agent: Peter Matson, Sterling Lord Literistic.