The ants go marching... ~~"The Guns of August"

The Guns of August

Barbara W. Tuchman
Presidio Press
Sales Rank: 7140

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 The ants go marching..., 2003-05-07

Scanning through the lists, I see that I'm clearly the contrarian when it comes to reviews of this book on Amazon - but I know I wouldn't have wasted an evening reading the first 50 pages of it if I had seen a few negative reviews such as this. Maybe I can save one or two of you some time as well.

If you are looking for a perspective on World War I which enacts its "artistic" license by comparing the German invasion of Belgium to a swarm of ants, that demonizes the Kaiser and glorifies the stalwart French and British generals - this is the book for you! I have to wonder, though -- if you think those are central elements of a description of what took place in August of 1914, why bother? You already know the history and are just looking for someone to arrange it in elegantly crafted lines. But if you believe that such lively metaphor and monochrome white-hat/black-hat perspectives could hardly explain the historical world any better than they do our own era, stay clear.

I'm no expert by any means - but I've developed an interest in the war and the era, and a year of reading WWI-related books, has led me to two conclusions: (1) it was a darn complicated chunk of history - the leading-up-to, the four-years-slaughter, and the reverberating after-effects and (2) attempts to "spin" the story have been entwined with the factual record to such a degree that they are themselves an intriguing piece of the history. Tuchman's tale neither explores the complications nor acknowledges the spin. She tells a simple tale in wonderfully dramatic language that�s as good as anything Tom Clancy can produce, but its designed more for the heart than the head.

There are many, many books about WWI from the inter-war period and some of them can still stand a look. But there has also been an intriguing resurgence of interest in and publishing on the war during the last decade which, itself, is a phenomenon that hints at something fascinating about who writes history and when (and how)they write it.

If you are looking for books with a perspective that goes beyond the �swarm of ants� approach I�d recommend Mosier�s �The Myth of the Great War� and Ferguson�s �The Pity of War�. The former is startlingly pro-German (and pro-American - quite a combination, that) and the latter, although leaking some of the usual pro-Brit tone, constructs a quite-detailed pathway to thinking about the big �what-if� � if Germany had won the war. Keegan�s section about the Somme in �The Face of Battle� goes beyond the usual military history (but avoid his two �Histories� of the war itself) and the recent �14-18, Understanding the Great War� by Audoin-Rouzeau is flawed but demonstrates how even a Francophile perspective can at least explore different realms.

Reviewed By A14DV5W2N1EAJJ

This review was cited from Amazon.com.

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