This is an absolute masterpiece. It has been one of my very best reading experiences. The moment I started reading it, I was completely captivated.

The story is so engaging and the characters are so vividly portrayed that it feels like I'm actually a part of their world.

I found myself completely immersed in the plot, unable to put the book down.

After finishing it, I had this overwhelming urge to read it again. In fact, I think I should probably read this like 5 more times.

Each time I read it, I'm sure I'll discover something new and gain a deeper understanding of the story and its themes.

This is definitely a book that will stay with me for a long time and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves a great read.

This is a very interesting non-fiction about the beginning of the First World War.

It is rather dry, without excessive grandeur, but at the same time it contains descriptions of details, characters, and various small accents that help one feel the era. For example, how small-scale the world was at that time and how much poor communication affected all decisions in general.

What amused me especially was that in this thick book about the beginning of the First World War, a whole paragraph of text is devoted to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand.

Because it wasn't his fault.

Faded Print.

The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman is indeed a renowned work on the First World War. It was first penned in 1962 and has remained in print even after the author's passing. The book offers a detailed account of the first month of the war, including the German invasion of France and Belgium, the failure of the Schlieffen Plan and the French Plan XVII, and the onset of the stalemate. However, it does not focus on explaining the origins of the war or the July Crisis.

The writing is of a high standard, although it can be dense at times, making it difficult to follow. Tuchman gets bogged down in details in some areas, but in others, she writes masterfully. The book is like a rollercoaster ride, with some parts being a sweaty slog and others a breezy reward.

Too much emphasis is placed on the chase of the warships Geoben and Breslau and the seizure of the Ottoman warships by Winston Churchill, which drove the Ottomans into the war. There is also new light shed on the events of the Battle of Mons, the Ballplatz, and Chorister’s Bridge. While the book has its merits, some of the ideas are now outdated or have been superseded by new scholarship.

I have heard that The Distant Mirror is Tuchman’s best work, and reading The Guns of August has piqued my interest in that. This book is a classic for a reason, and it is worth reading for the vivid portrayal of the characters alone. However, I believe there are other books that are more essential for understanding the First World War.

I am truly baffled by the extremely high ratings that this book manages to receive.

It is blatantly and wildly biased, and to make matters worse, it is completely uninformative.

I couldn't care less about what The Kaiser was wearing on a particular occasion.

What I do deeply care about is understanding the reasons why the war actually broke out.

However, after reading a full 100 pages, I find myself with no clearer understanding of that crucial aspect than when I first began.

I have made two attempts to read this book, and both times I ended up giving up in sheer disgust.

Now, I'm moving on to "The First World War" by Hew Strachan.

Although it has received rather mixed reviews, after simply reading the Introduction, I already have a strong feeling that it holds much more promise than "Guns."

I'm hopeful that this new book will provide the in-depth and objective analysis that I've been seeking regarding the causes and events of the war.

5 Stars for The Guns of August.

I won't take the time to do a review because there are already numerous excellent reviews here. For instance, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... is a great place to begin. As we draw near to the 100th anniversary of the start of WWI, I highly recommend reading this book. It is an absolute gem that combines excitement, instruction, and scholarship all in one. This is precisely how history should be written! After reading this, I am extremely enthusiastic and eager to explore more of Tuchman's work. She truly deserved all the praise and awards she received for this remarkable book. It offers a vivid and detailed account of the events leading up to and during the early days of WWI, making it a must-read for history enthusiasts and anyone interested in understanding this significant period in world history.

This is a book that I have shied away from throughout my entire reading life.

The book instilled fear in me, as I was concerned that it might be overly pretentious and that I would be unable to complete it. However, I found the author to be extremely inviting, and the writing to be highly accessible. I am glad that I waited until my later years to read this, as I doubt I would have embraced it in my younger days.

Tuckman narrates the story of the very first month of WWI. Her vivid descriptions of the characters involved, from every country, incorporate some of the driest yet best humor I have encountered in a long time. To put it simply, this event that transformed our world was a chaotic circus. With ringmasters from each country directing and redirecting, none of them willing to abandon their "plan" for a short and uneventful war. The lack of cooperation among the Allies led to confusion, a war that endured for years, and a death toll that is难以想象的.

I relished the first 3 - 4 chapters, as Tuckman introduced the main individuals and countries. Midway through the book, we delved into the battles in Belgium and France, and to be honest, it was a bit overwhelming for me. I will concede that it was an educational experience for me. There were so many events that I knew absolutely nothing about. The terror that Germany unleashed upon Belgium left me stunned. Tuckman tells the story from both perspectives, but you can be certain that the treatment she gave the Germans was justly merited.

Tuckman won the Pulitzer for this book, and it was well-deserved. The research that must have gone into this book is staggering.

It is a weighty tome on a serious subject that took me 2 months to complete. However, not a single minute of that time was wasted.

You could almost be excused for thinking that the highest praise one could give a work of non-fiction would be that it reads like a work of fiction. I haven’t looked at any of the other reviews for this book yet, but I would be prepared to bet that many of them say this read like a novel. And it is an incredibly dramatic story and some of the characters are larger than life – but this is no novel.

I say that because in a novel you expect at least some of the characters to develop during it – and the horrible thing about this story is how few of the characters learnt a bloody thing.

As a case in point. It might sound like I’m anti-French, I know, but I can’t help it. All of the countries were stupid, but the French were absurd, and that is something else. I’ve been telling people about this book and these have been the things I have been telling them. A Frenchman goes over to watch the Japanese beat the Russians in a war that was held just before the First World War, a mere decade before the date this book is set. What did he notice in his watching? He noticed that it is generally not a good idea to charge against people with machine guns. After, when he mentioned this to other French generals they decided that he was a coward. He said that wearing a uniform that featured a bright blue coat and bright red trousers might be the equivalent of wearing a bull’s eye tied around your neck and a neon sign saying ‘shoot here’. His saying this was considered not only utterly outrageous but also an insult to French soldiers. When there was a suggestion that the French should use BIG guns, the commanders in charge of infantry rejected the suggestion as big cannons would only ‘slow them down’.

The lesson is that you can change the technology, but people might not understand what that change will mean. In fact, they probably won’t. They may still want to charge in front of machine guns wearing red trousers and showing the world how ‘brave’ they are. Or they might assume that the new communications technology that worked so well in training will work just as well in the chaos of war.

This is a book about a world that has just changed forever and how hard it was for people to realise just what changes had been wrought. It is about how fixed people are in their views, particularly when those views are based on ‘plans’ that have been worked out in detail for years. It is about how hard it is to admit you are wrong, even when all evidence is pointing to the fact. It is about how sometimes people will (effectively) choose death rather than admit they made a mistake.

There is a horrible sense in which this book will help to confirm all of your worst fears about humanity. World War One was the opening nightmare of our modern world. And this book looks at the first month of the war, how that month raced towards war and nearly rushed towards the fall of Paris, and left me despairing for humanity.

I couldn’t get over how many generals were supporters of Nietzsche and his views on the ‘will to power’. The idea that a great man will use his will-power to create a world in his image. That it does not matter how many enemies you face, that all it takes is courage to prevail. And when their armies were beaten back by superior fire power, larger armies and crippled by there being no supplies these same generals put it all down to their soldiers’ lack of courage or lack of will.

All I knew about the start of the war before reading this book was that some Prince got killed in the Balkans, Austria and Germany had a pact that meant if one was attacked the other would have to fight with them – Russia, France and England were in much the same situation. The world started fighting, soldiers dug tranches and everything stayed like that until they called it quits. Oh, and lots and lots of people died.

I had no idea how close Germany came to winning the war against France in that first month. This really is a gripping story, but it is still not a novel. In fact, I kept thinking that this would make a much better film than a novel. And it would make an amazing film. The conversations between members of parliament and generals and kings are invariably remarkable.

This is well worth getting your hands on. Thanks to Richard for recommending it to me.

At over 650 pages and covering only the first month of WWI, Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August is a comprehensive exploration of its extremely narrow subject matter.

Of course, there is also lead-up detail. Tuchman does an excellent job of explaining the who and why. And then there is a small part at the end where she ties it all together, and some of that extends beyond August 1914, the first month of the outbreak of WWI. But in all honesty, this is really mostly about that one month. It's quite impressive.

Readers of Game of Thrones will have a sense of deja vu as they plow through The Guns.... There are so many names of people to remember, and so many of them are dying. WWI was a complex and chaotic mess. Tuchman helps to make some sense of it.

She delves deep into the events, strategies, and personalities of that fateful month, providing a detailed and engaging account. The book offers valuable insights into the causes and early stages of the war, helping readers to better understand this significant period in history.

Overall, The Guns of August is a remarkable work that showcases Tuchman's research skills and ability to bring a historical subject to life.

Another masterpiece by Mrs. Takman!

This book has managed to explain the first month of World War I in the best way with details and, with the help of various sources, analyze the reasons for the start and also the battles of the first month in the best way. It has also examined many of the "ifs" and "buts" that, if they occurred or did not occur, could change the course of the war to a great extent.

I never thought that a person could bring so many details about one month of history and the reader could move forward with it without fatigue or confusion.

The book has good maps with it and one of the interesting things the author has done is to talk about the moral and personality characteristics of the commanders and politicians involved, which is very helpful in understanding the situation.

The translation is also very well done with the text and reading this number of pages was not at all annoying.

Perhaps by reading it, you will come to the question of how there are so many valuable documents and details about a war about 100 years ago, but in the case of the Iran-Iraq war, one-tenth of these documents do not exist and even many of the events have been distorted. In any case, the place for such a book about our own war is extremely empty.

The author provides excellent descriptions and makes incisive comments about the characters in this drama, which can be broadened to have a wider application to human nature.

This makes this classic truly worth reading. However, the reader should expect that a significant portion of the text involves the movements of one army in one direction and another army in a different direction.

If such military maneuvers are not inherently captivating for the reader, as they were not for me, then certain parts of this work will be less than engaging.

Aside from a few precious phrases here and there, my favorite aspect of the book is the author's impartial evaluation of what one side views as barbarous terrorism and the other side views as a justifiable protection of its own armies.

This exploration of just war reverberates throughout the 20th century and continues into the 21st century, making it a relevant and thought-provoking topic.

6.0 stars. WOW!! This book was truly AMAZING!!

I have always had a deep interest in World War II and have read a significant number of books on the subject. However, until I read THIS book, I had never made an effort to learn anything more than the basics of World War I.

With the reading of this incredible book, I have taken a huge step forward in correcting that deficiency.

The book focuses on the first 30 days of World War I (as the title suggests), and it beautifully and comprehensively addresses the causes of the conflict, the preparations made by the future combatants, and the astonishing chain of events that led to the war.

At over 600 pages and dealing with only the first 30 days, one might think this book would be overly dry and verbose. But nothing could be further from the truth. It is not only incredibly informative but also highly entertaining.

I give this book the HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION!!!

Absolute “must read” for all history buffs!

“The Guns of August” is not a history of World War I in the sense that Barbara Tuchman does not describe the course of the war from start to finish. 800 pages of her work are dedicated only to the causes of the conflict and the first thirty days of combat - from the German storming of Liège to the Allied counterattack near Paris, which received the name “Miracle on the Marne” in historiography.

“The Guns of August” is a consecutive account of how humanity, which expected a “civilized war,” instead got four years of positional battles in trenches stretching for a thousand kilometers, full of filth, blood, rats, and corpses. Instead of “purification by battle” - dozens of villages and towns burned in the name of terror, instead of “the triumph of civilization” - the libraries of Louvain and Rheims Cathedral were destroyed. Step by step, everyone voluntarily went to this result, of course, expecting a quick victory for their own side. Indeed, as it turns out from Tuchman's text, everyone wanted this war, although it had every chance not to happen if it were not for the inertia of already built and launched plans.

Given all the huge number of names, titles, army and corps numbers, Barbara Tuchman managed to create a character for each commander who played a significant role in the battles. What is often lacking in historical works - the atmosphere - in Barbara Tuchman runs through every event. The weather, clothing, emotional phrases from personal conversations and correspondence, parallels, and emotional personal evaluations - that's what makes “The Guns of August” truly an interesting read!

I'm eagerly waiting for the Ukrainian translation. And I generally don't understand why it doesn't exist yet!?