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John Keegan

I first read Keegan's Face of Battle when it was published. His descriptions of the life of the man on the front lines was both shocking and compelling. Covering the battles of Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme (they all took place within a short distance of each other), he describes the similarities and differences of war thru the ages. I've anxiously awaited each of his following books and have never been disappointed. In Price of Admiralty, he does for naval warfare what he did for the infantry in Face of Battle. Mask of Command studies great commanders throughout history (including Grant and Hitler with Wellington and Alexander begs to be debated and studied).

Intelligence in War his latest - examines the effects of intelliegence on battles stretching from Nelson to the Gulf War

  • The Second World War The best single volume study of the war available -- comparable to McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom for the Civil War. Yet it never becomes merely a narrative. In each section Keegan focuses on personalities, strategies and historical problems, offering many new insights and challenging preconceptions.

    From Publishers Weekly

    This account of WW II, though controversial, is rich in fresh perception, interpretation and opinion. In addition to penning a fast-paced campaign chronicle, Keegan ( The Mask of Command ) makes a convincing case for the prime motivations of Allied and Axis leaders, pinpoints the practical results of Allied summit conferences and defines the war's geopolitical dimensions. He maintains that Stalin's purge of the Soviet high command was beneficial in certain respects, and explains why Guadalcanal was a cheap victory for the U.S. Keegan argues that Churchill's hope that resistance forces would "set ablaze" Europe was a romantic notion, and that the British "descended to the enemy's level" in the strategic bombing of Germany. Most provocative are his comments on Roosevelt: while many historians would agree that FDR was the most enigmatic of the war's major figures, few will concur that his policies were "profoundly ambiguous." Photos. 50,000 first printing; $50,000 ad/promo.
    Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
     

    From Library Journal

    In contrast to Martin Gilbert's broader The Second World War ( reviewed in this issue, p.101), Keegan's work is more a battle campaign. His strength as a military historian ( The Face of Battle, The Price of Admiralty ) is in his ability to synthesize the order of battle without getting bogged down in minutae. The mighty German-Russian struggles are well covered, as is the war in the Pacific. While Robert Leckie's Delivered from Evil: The Saga of World War II ( LJ 9/1/87) is nearly twice as long as Keegan's book, integrates biographical material into the narrative, and is less analytical than Keegan's, Keegan's is extremely well written; the reader can almost visualize the movement of an army without looking at the maps. On another level, however, Keegan tends to be simplistic (e.g., in his discussion of the causes of World War II, in his view that the war would have come even without Hitler) and skim over many topics. Nevertheless, academic and larger public libraries will find this in demand. Recommended. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 9/15/89.
    - Robert Jordan, Univ. of Iowa, Iowa City

     

  • The Battle for History : Re-Fighting World War II
  • The Face of Battle
  • Fields of Battle : The Wars for North America
  • The Price of Admiralty : The Evolution of Naval Warfare
  • The Great Battles and Leaders of the Second World War : An Illustrated History Winston S. Churchill, John Keegan
  • A History of Warfare
  • The Mask of Command
  • Who's Who in Military History : From 1453 to the Present Day (Who's Who Series); John Keegan, Andrew Wheatcroft

The First World War

cover The latest of Keegan's book, this one brings the same wonderful combination of enormous research and clear and powerful writing. His description of the events leading up to the outbreak of war are excellent. This book provides the perfect foil to The Pity of War, and I read them both together.

From Publishers Weekly

In a riveting narrative that puts diaries, letters and action reports to good use, British military historian Keegan (The Face of Battle, etc.) delivers a stunningly vivid history of the Great War. He is equally at easeAand equally generous and sympatheticAprobing the hearts and minds of lowly soldiers in the trenches or examining the thoughts and motivations of leaders (such as Joffre, Haig and Hindenburg) who directed the maelstrom. In the end, Keegan leaves us with a brilliant, panoramic portrait of an epic struggle that was at once noble and futile, world-shaking and pathetic. The war was unnecessary, Keegan writes, because the train of events that led to it could have been derailed at any time, "had prudence or common goodwill found a voice." And it was tragic, consigning 10 million to their graves, destroying "the benevolent and optimistic culture" of Europe and sowing the seeds of WWII. While Niall Ferguson's The Pity of War (Forecasts, Mar. 8) offers a revisionist, economic interpretation of the causes of WWI, Keegan stands impressively mute before the unanswerable question he poses: "Why did a prosperous continent, at the height of its success as a source and agent of global wealth and power and at one of the peaks of its intellectual and cultural achievement, choose to risk all it had won for itself and all it offered to the world in the lottery of a vicious and local internecine conflict?"
 
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