The War to End All Wars Books

This was one of the most moving Christian testimonies I have read. It is the amazing biography of Ernest Gordon, a British POW in Japanese occupied Thailand. The book is more than that though. The personal and historical account of To End All Wars provides the reader with tremendous hope born in the midst of suffering. In the same spirit as Corrie Ten Boon's the Hiding Place, this work writes about the difficulty of finding and protecting the value of human life through the power of God's love and forgiveness. Such was the key to Ernest Gordon's end to the war and for many of his fellow inmates, and it is a message that is repeated throughout the account. There are many moments when such self-sacrificing love is put to the test. One defining moment was when the prisoners administered aid to wounded Japanese soldiers who were previously their captors at the very end of the war. The title of my review comes from a quote from Mr. Gordon taken from this event. The book itself is a testament to the grace and mercy of God, which offered these defeated men a restoration of their souls through forgiveness rather than maintain in their hearts the bitterness of hatred despite the cruelty they suffered. A truly powerful and soul-stirring book!

This is one of the best books I've read so far... Though it may appear repetitive at times (there's really little else the author could write about beside what's happening in the POW camps along the Kwai), the reflection on the human condition and the supreme virtue of self-sacrifice in the footsteps of Jesus Christ is written with much poignancy and profundity. The epilogue is a tour de force for its penetrating criticism of the 'civilised' society the author returned to after the war. The reverse culture shock he experienced is a haunting reminder of how that still small voice can be so easily drowned out in the cacophony of modern society.

My wife and I had watched the movie a couple months ago (be warned: it is incredibly brutal) and been moved by the power of the story. Unfortunately, as it turned out, the book and the move are not the same story. In fact, other than the similarity of the major premise (a British officer in a Japanese POW camp during WW2), they had almost nothing in common.

However. . .

That was only disappointing insomuch as I kept waiting for certain events from the movie to show up. The movie had colored my expectations for the book, which meant I couldn't take the book on its own merits. Which is too bad, because, upon completing the book, I would say it is as powerful as the movie, perhaps even more so. But you have to let the book speak for itself. The story is truly miraculous, as this band of prisoners devolve into a wild bunch of animals at the hands of their captors, only to be transformed by the Spirit of Christ into a true Community of compassion and care. Somehow, in the midst of hell, these men found the power to love each other, to care for each other, to even forgive their Japanese tormentors. When people ask "Does Christianity work?", the story of this book says "absolutely!" And in a day and age of spiteful attacks, divisive language, polarized religions and selfish money-grubbing politicians and religious leaders, there is a real lesson here about what being a True Follower of Christ is all about.

It's a difficult, but true message. The author takes an unflinching look at the evil that men are capable of through his own personal experience in Japanese prison camps and carries you through the experience on to the brilliant hope on the other side of his own personal pain. The underlying truth you discover is the genuine potential to be found in one man's selfless, sacrificial care for another. It's an excellent read.

Formally published as "Miracle on the River Kwai" and renamed to coincide with a new movie. This book was written by Ernest Gordon a Scottish Army officer who served in the South Pacific During the war.

Back Story
During that time the Japanese advanced on Singapore, and Gordon and a few other officers try to escape on a chartered sailboat. After being captured at sea, he was incarcerated and sent to a work camp in Thailand, building the infamous railway of death, where nearly 80,000 prisoners lost their life in a little over a year. This railway and the Chungkai prison camp are the real back story to the Oscar winning film "Bridge On the River Kwai."

What the classic movie doesn't tell you is the horrific condition and constant death that the builders of the bridge met with on a daily basis.

The Book
The story is a recount of Ernest Gordon's experiences at the camp and his witness to that camps transformation from what he called "the worst that man could be" to the "best that man could be."

The book starts with Gordon laying in the hospital at Chungkai, called the "Death House" by the prisoners as there was very few he came back from the hospital. Gordon then flashes back to what led him here, and then continues from that point and tells of the camps transformation. Before Gordon wound up in the hospital the camp was very much "every man for himself" animal instinct and the law of the jungle dictated who lived and who died. During Gordon's stay at the hospital while he was suffering and near death with Beriberi, Tropical Ulcers, Malaria, and Amoebic Dysentery, he propped himself up, void of hope, and penned a last letter to his parents. That was his low point. He was nursed back to health by two other POW's Dinty Moore, and Dusty Miller. Both bartered for food and medicine, cleaned his ulcers, massaged his legs to reverse the atrophy and gave him encouragement to give him the hope he needed to recover. These two men became an inspiration to the rest of the camp, and like Ernest Gordon, many started to emulate their kindness willingness to help others. Dusty Miller a devote Christian also read the bible to Gordon which inspired him. Gordon then started to hold bible studies with other in the camp; they often shared bibles that men had smuggled in. This led to a spiritual revival of the camp, where men helped each other to survive. The camp changed from a group of individuals to a community that served each other with the same love that Christ had shown them in the bible. Many more survived the wrath of the Japanese as a result of the selfless acts of the camp members, in one part of the book one enlisted soldier, admits that he stole a shovel (which he didn't) just to save the lives of his co-prisoners, that soldier was immediately beaten to death, but his sacrifice as well as others, were what changed to mood of the camp.

The Legacy
This spiritual revival, not only led to many surviving the camp, but transcended into their life after the war. Gordon's epilogue was probably the best part of the book where he paints his perspective against the backdrop of the post-war error.

"We returned to a world divided by hatreds. We thought we had come home to a world at peace; instead we found a world already preparing for the next war. Having had as much reason to hate as anybody, we had overcome hatred."

"We had seen a vision of far horizons and caught a glimpse of the City of God in all its beauty and this vision seemed to be part of a different world."

Summary
Overall the book is very interesting, and is an intriguing story of suffering and hope. Gordon's style is very easy to read, almost like he's sitting next you telling the story. The descriptions of the people and the camp are genuine and I had no problem understanding and even "knowing" many of the characters in the book.

Editorial
It's one thing read about the word of God and the acts of Jesus, it's an entirely different think to witness it first hand as Gordon does and writes about with stunning detail. If found this to be an inspiring story of the grace of God that is given, by giving up selfishness. I have learned a lot about what true Christian's look like after reading this book. If you want my opinion, Christ looked a lot more like Dusty Miller and Ernest Gordon, than the face of modern evangelical minister today.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who wants to see the how God's Grace can transform the most desperate situations

It is really cool so CHECK IT OUT!! Especialy if you like axis and allies.

Well-researched and it reads like a novel. 565 pages flew by before I noticed I was making progress. And timely as all get-out. What more could you posssibly want for the price of five gallons of Middle Eastern gas?

I would have given this book six stars. A facinating read, leaving me to wonder why we ever thought we could succeed in immediate and radical change? Sadly, I supported GW!

This is an absolutely first-rate history book: it covers the complexity without simplification, yet tells a riveting story with a huge cast of larger than life characters (Churchill, Ataturk, Lenin, Lawrence of Arabia, and many others). It is also superlatively written.

The book begins with the machinations leading up to the Great War. The Ottoman Empire - in decline for over 300 years, yet a useful "buffer" for the Western powers against the Russian Empire in the "Great Game" - is finally coming apart with the rise of the western-minded "young Turks." That means that it is finally collapsing and Britain and France must decide whether to continue to prop up its vast territorial holdings or to nakedly seek to carve up its territories for the benefit of their own empires. France coveted Syria and Lebanon, GB the rest. In the end, it is what they got.

Once the Great War began, however, the Turks allied themselves with the Germans, for which CHurchill was unjustly blamed (he confiscated two destroyers that Britain's shipyards had just manufactured for the Turks). This led directly to the catastrophically mismanaged invasion of the Dardanelles, in a bid to end the War by pushing a wedge into the Germanic coalition from the South, again Churchill's idea. (Amazingly, the collapse of Bulgaria was what finally ended WWI 4 years later, as the allies entered the gap). As the Turks rallied, the allies turned to making alliances with the Arabs and others under loose Turkish suzerainty.

The greatest accomplishment of the book is to dissect the mentality of British policymakers, which by today's standards was almost ghoulishly primitive. First, they had a 19C colonialist bias, which meant that they were by nature destined to rule the "brown" races, from India to Arabia, for their own good. WHile there was much strategic calculation, such as guarding the Suez canal for freighter traffic, it was principally to maintain the glory of the British Empire as conceived under Queen Victoria. Second, they utterly lacked basic knowledge of not just the Turks, but also the Arabs and Zionists. For example, beyond sensationalist and romantic travel literature, the only available source to understand the Turk was a history written in the 18C! Few of the aristocratic elite spoke any of the languages and most were openly racist and anti-semitic. Third, there were conspiracy theories that would appear absolutely lunatic today (to paraphrase Fromkin). Thus, there were top policymakers who actually believed that Jews controlled not just the young Turks, but also the emerging Bolshievics and even the German Kaiser's inner circle!

This ignorance and arrogant disregard for other points of view would be laughable were they not responsible for the decisions that set up the system of shakey nation states we see today in the Middle East. To cultivate the non-existent Jewish cabal, the Brits came up with the Balfour Declaration, which recognized the validity of a zionist state. (Interestingly, like many fundamentalists today, this support gained indispensable credence because a state of Jews in Palestine was a Biblical prerequisite for Armageddon and the assumed ascension of Christians to paradise.) In addition, the Brits designated several families, including the Hashemites - Aristocrats chosen first by the Turks and educated in the Harem of the Sublime Port - as a way to gain control over all Arabs tribes as they believed they would obey the dictates of the highest religious authority. Once the Brits chose these people, they were stuck with them, which was how the new states eventually were established.

As the War came to an end, GB and France - now distrustful of eachothers' imperial ambitions to the point that they almost went to war! - were unable to devote attention and resources to nationbuilding, though this did not stop them from setting up what were supposed to become modern states in places that knew neither secular politics nor any sense of national purpose. They just installed people they hoped they could trust (read "control"), which explains who became leaders of what petty kingdoms at that time. Many, though not all of them are still there and almost completely lack political legitimacy over vast territories that were governed by independent tribes under a loose Turkish confederation. It is no wonder that these artificial constructs are so unstable, mixing peoples with modern weaponry and infrastructure who for centuries were isolated and divided by religion, ethnicity, and power politics. The new leaders and their subjects had little idea how to wield the tools of the modern state, while nascent nationalisms were undermining the western empires.

This is the story of the greatest watershed of the 20C: sowing the seeds of the end of western domination as the impulse grew in colonial peoples to govern themselves. Not only did Turkey reinvent itself, but the Soviet Union was born, and the western powers (with the exception of the US) had squandered their human and financial resources catastrophically. Amazingly, what was going on in the Middle East at that time was seen as a backwater sideshow: virtually no one recognized the magnitude of change that was unleashed.

If there is any failing of the book, it is its less diligent effort to penetrate the minds of the Arabs and Turks. The author brilliantly delineates the moribund reasoning from within the 19C western empires, but does not explain what the powerful indigenous peoples were thinking and feeling.

Warmly recommended. This is one of the best history books I have read in years.

Fromkin's seminal work is now almost 20 years old, and it is still the essential history book on the bungled making of the modern Middle East. Like another reviewer, I would gladly have given this a 6-star rating if it were possible. So much today remains the very same, save for the change from one imperial power to another. Consider from the Introduction: "The European powers at that time believed they could change Moslem Asia in the very fundamentals of its political existence, and in their attempt to do so introduced an artificial state system into the Middle East that has made it into a region of countries that have not become nations even today." On page 451 Fromkin quotes the caution of an American missionary to the woman who, by in large, created Iraq, Gertrude Bell: "You are flying in the face of four millenniums of history if you try to draw a line around Iraq and call it a political entity..... they have no conception of nationhood yet."

From the perspective of a century, in some ways it is difficult to believe that all this was a sideshow, to use William Shawcross's phrase for Cambodia. The "real drama" was the Western Front, a subsidiary drama the Eastern Front, and the rise of Communism, and this very distant front was much like Burma during the Second War World, few players with meager resources.

Fromkin lays much of the blame for the misunderstandings between the West and the Middle East on Kitchener. In a description true of individuals today, he said of Kitchener: "The peculiarities of his character, the deficiencies of his understanding of the Moslem world, the misinformation regularly supplied to him by his lieutenants...... and his choice of Arab politicians...."

His chapter on the Balfour Declaration is strong; balancing the forces and players at work, and making the oft-forgotten point that the vast majority of the world's Jew's were not Zionists. The book is replete with other ironies, such as a footnoted exchange:"... on the Arab question, shows Lord Kitchener asking, "Wahabism, does that still exist?" and Sykes answering, "I think it is a dying fire." So much of the West's impression of Saudi Arabia was initially formed by TE Lawrence, in his half-fictional work "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" so Fromkin's confirmation that Lawrence himself cautioned his biographer, Graves, that his work is "...full of half-truth here." is a valuable reminder to examine the prism and motives of individuals who write about the Middle East.

On page 468, again with an easy substitution, plus ca change.... "In fact there was an outside force linked to every one of the outbreaks of violence in the Middle East, but it was the one force whose presence remained invisible to British officialdom. It was Britain herself. In a region of the globe whose inhabitants were known especially to dislike foreigners, and in a predominantly Moslem world which could abide being ruled by almost anybody except non-Moslems, a foreign Christian country ought to have expected to encounter hostility when it attempted to impose its own rule."

I agree with some of the criticism of this book: that it is a "big man's" version of history, and neglects describing broader social forces that motivate the "little man" and that it is weak on describing the thinking and motivation of the non-European regional players.

We can only hope that additional parallels with the present situation will occur, from page 561: "By the time that the war came to an end (WW I), British society was generally inclined to reject the idealistic case for imperialism (that it would extend the benefits of advanced civilization to a backward region) as quixotic, and the practical case for it (that it would be a benefit to Britain to expand her empire) as untrue. Viewing imperialism as a costly drain on a society that needed to invest all of its remaining resources in rebuilding itself...."

This book should be mandatory reading for the next American administration.

World War One brought about the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the creation of the modern Middle East. Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine (including a somewhat conditional Jewish Homeland), and the Transjordan were carved out mainly by the British. Turkey established itself as a separate entity including both European (East Thrace) and Asian parts. David Fromkin leads the reader through the changes that occurred between 1914 and 1922 in meticulous detail. Indeed, this reader found the book's main shortcoming to be the welter of specific facts that sometimes obscured the larger picture.

Fromkin's book was published in 1989 so that it has an interesting historical perspective. The Iranians had thrown out the Americans and the so-called Afghan Arabs had played their (exaggerated) role in pushing the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan, but 9-11 remained over a decade in the future. Nonetheless, Fromkin detected the strength of Islam as the most important force in the region.

Fromkin notes that the Middle East was the final area of the world to fall to Western (mostly British) imperialism. He also observes that this extension of Western power had long been anticipated with the main question being which country would get how much. In the end the British obtained more paper power than they could reasonable have hoped for, but then they found that by 1922 they had neither the will nor the wherewithal to exert that power. The Great War drained them of both. The British, and to a lesser degree the French and Americans, created weak countries and left major issues such as the fate of Kurds, Jews, and Palestinian Arabs unresolved.

An even more fundamental challenge remained and remains. In every other area of the globe subjected to Western dominance, Western forms and principles prevailed, but Fromkin notes that "at least one of those assumptions, the modern belief in secular civil government, is an alien creed in a region most of whose inhabitants...have avowed faith in a Holy Law that governs all life, including government and politics." Fromkin puts his finger right on the problem that the West has in understanding much of the region.

Even more daunting, Fromkin argues that the Middle East still has not sorted itself out after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. He notes discouragingly that it took Western Europe about more than a millennium to "resolve its post-Roman crisis of social and political identity". The region's politics lack any "sense of legitimacy" or "agreement on the rules of the game - and no belief, universally shared in the region...that the entities that call themselves countries or the men who claim to be rulers are entitled to recognition as such." The last such rulers were the Ottoman sultans.

With regard to the current troubles in Iraq, one fervently wishes that someone in Washington had appreciated the penetrating analysis by the British civil commissioner Arnold Wilson in 1920 about the area just then being called Iraq. While he was called upon to administer the provinces of Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul, he did not believe they "formed a coherent entity". As he saw it the Kurds of Mosul would never accept an Arab leader, while the Shi'ite Moslems would never accept domination by the minority Sunnis, but, to directly quote Wilson, "no form of Government has yet been envisaged, which does not involve Sunni domination." And on and on it goes.

The book features a number of familiar figures, Winston Churchill most prominent among them. Fromkin's favorable treatment of Churchill strongly suggests that Winston was repeatedly ill-served by subordinates, bad luck, and bad press. By 1922, Churchill was finished as a British politician (or so it seemed). Other major figures include Lord Kitchener, David Lloyd George, T.E. Lawrence (about whom many questions are raised). A plethora of lesser known British and French military and civil leaders abound in the pages of Fromkin's lengthy tome, not to mention the odd Russia and German. Turkish leaders, such as Enver Pasha and Mustapha Kemal often bewilder their Western counterparts.

Perhaps the oddest historical artifact reproduced by Fromkin was the belief, generally accepted among British intelligence and high-ranking civil and military leaders, in a conspiracy between Prussian generals and Jewish financiers manipulating Russian Bolsheviks and Turkish nationalists to the detriment of British interests! Moreover, in this conspiratorial view, Islam was controlled by Jewry. At this point, the reader is tempted to quietly murmur that the British should go home where they might understand something of what they are about. (The dangers of drawing too direct lessons from history are great and while the US leadership did not harbor any notions quite this crackpot, it bears notice that the US seem not to have understand Iraq, its history, or its people before sending in troops.)

Fromkin produced a fine book, not an easy read, with a wealth of information and an excellent closing summary. It suffered, at times from the size of the subject - the transformation of an entire region during a worldwide war - and the maze of characters and details. A book that bears a second reading and a subject (subjects, really) for further study. Highly recommended.

Professor Knock turned my head around on the foreign policies of Woodrow Wilson. This book takes the reader back into the 1890s, when Wilson was a professor of politics and history, in its quest to understand the evolution of his foreign policy thru American entry into the First World War. Nothing is sacred in this author's hands either. He devises a large-scale drama encompassing a spectrum of players--Jane Addams, William Howard Taft, Elihu Root, Eugene Debs, and more--as he dissects how and why Wilson failed to gain Senate ratification for the Treaty of Versailles. If it is a familiar story, Professor Knock's retelling of it is both original and compelling. I think this is the single most important book currently available on Wilsonian foreign policy.

When I was very young, I read somewhere that Wilson was the greatest swindler in human history. And Wilson has always been a mistery to me. Reading this book, I expected to learn the reason why Woodrow Wilson decided to lead America into World War I. But it was not a main theme of this book. And the explanation about it was not satisfactory to me. My misunderstanding about Wilson, however, is removed now thanks to this book.
Thomas J. Knox decidedly focused on the League issue. He meticulously studied the process of the formation of League of Nations. And his analysis of American political spectrum of that era - especially progressive internationalism & conservative internationalism - was excellent. It was very helpful in studying American history.

To End All Wars attempts to show where President Wilson's ideas on the League of Nations came from and why he ultimatly failed. A fascinating protryal of early 20th century poltics, Knock successfully intergrates both the domestic policies of Wilson with his international policies. The links between the progressive, pacifist leagues and Wilson's views are clearly marked and appear credible. What is not examined is the moral conflict between Wilson's anti-war views and the fact he lead the country into World War I. Further research into this inconsitency could have led insight into why Wilson treated his former progrssive allies with such contempt as the war progressed. The ultimate result was his political inability to convince the American people to join the League of Nations after he alientated his greatest supporters.

This book is about Woodrow Wilson's quest for a new world order during and after WW I, especially his strong desire for the creation of a League of Nations which would mediate all future disputes between nations. The U.S. Senate, of course, voted it down. I found it interesting how the country (and Wilson) had strong socialist leanings, especially in international affairs, until War was declared in 1916, when a huge reaction took effect. Knock does a good job relating events and portraying Wilson as one whose ideas for truly ending warfare was convincing to world leaders but not his own country. The effort of trying to persuade his countrymen of the importance of a League probably broke his health and led to his death. Recommended.

I loved this book. The best WW1 account I've ever read. Notably, although I read it primarily for this reason, I enjoyed the first part, centering on the romance, so much that I didn't want to leave that bit. Having said that, once in the trenches it was impelling in a different way. What an amazing movie it would be if produced by the right person. Does any one know Spielberg personally? Send it to him for his birthday.

In 1993's "Birdsong", author Sebastian Faulks crafts a multi-generational drama around the undoubted horror of trench warfare on the Western Front in the First World War. The novel is beautifully written, even haunting, if overambitious in the arc of its narrative.

In the first part of the story, young Englishman Stephen Wraysford arrives in Amiens, France, in 1910 to work with a local clothing manufacturer named Azaire. He stays at Azaire's home, and shortly begins a passionate affair with Azaire's young and abused wife, Isabelle. Stephen and Isabelle will elope, but when Isabelle learns she is pregnant, she abandons Stephen without explanation.

The story fast-forwards to 1916 and the First World War. Stephen Wrayford is a brand new subaltern, just promoted from the ranks and leading a British infantry platoon on the Western Front. One of his responsibilities is to assist an engineering company digging tunnels under the German lines. The leader of the engineering company, one Captain Weir, will become Stephen's best friend during the horror of the fighting. One of the enlisted engineers, Jack Firebrace, will be with Stephen at several points of mortal peril during the war and the two men will bond over their shared experience. As the war winds on, and Stephen struggles to find reasons to survive, he unexpectedly meets Isabelle's sister Jeanne. From Jeanne, he will learn Isabelle's story, and from her, he will also learn to draw strength.

The third portion of the narrative concerns a woman in her late 30's named Elizabeth, working as an executive at a small clothing design company in 1978 London. Elizabeth is single, childless, and carrying on an extended affair with a British diplomat. Her story overlaps with Stephen's, as we wonder whether he will survive the war while she deals with a surprise pregnancy and a sudden interest in the First World War. At the climax of the novel, Stephen is trapped in a collapsed tunnel beneath the lines while, two generations away, Elizabeth prematurely begins to give birth in a seaside cottage.

Faulks is a wonderful writer. His prose is exceptional, especially the portions of the novel concerning the Western Front, which are graphic in their telling and haunting in their insight. The initial portion of the novel serves to introduce us to Stephen Wrayford as a person, so that the changes driven by the war will be more visible to us. The connections between the first and second parts, as Stephen accidently encounters Jeanne, are important to Stephen's survival but less compelling as a continuation of the love story. The looping of Stephen's and Elizabeth's stories together is frankly awkward and strains to be plausible. The novel might have been better served by a shorter narrative.

"Birdsong" is highly recommended as a well-written, dramatic, and moving story of the First World War. It is somewhat less convincing as a multi-generational love story.

On the negative side, "Birdsong" is rather disjointed. The first part with the graphic sex is well written, but doesn't really flow into the rest of the story. The lame flashes to the 1970s also seem out of place and add nothing to the book.

However, the bulk of the novel that covers WW1, more than makes up for any deficiencies eleswhere. The writing is wonderful here. In particular, the part that describes the First Battle of the Somme just turned my blood cold. Extremely powerful and highly recommended - not just for history or war buffs.

Really well written and paced. Lots of interesting historical detail. Would have gotten a five if it wasn't so damned depressing.

Faulks goes for the big themes here with a seriously impressive load of characteristically self consciously humourless and weighty prose. First, we get a series of fin de siecle cameos a la Zola, EM Forster and Renoir etc. with "Luncheon of the boating party / la grande Jatte" scenarios; but then it's time for the trenches though I must admit the first world war mining tunnels broke new ground for me (metaphorically speaking)and the whole thing is obviously meticulously researched.
The problem is that there's has a smugly contrived feel with a seam of undermining modern day political correctness. Thus we have the Jewish German soldier banging on about the fatherland, the free love scenes of 1912 and 1978, the entire moral ambiguity thingy. The historical scenes have a vaguely phoney feel.It's still a great read though.

Perry has done a wonderful job in untangling the very intricate tale woven by J.R.R. Tolkien. Of particular help are the copious margin notes which reference exactly where Perry is drawing the information contained within that section of his book. The commentary made by the author is a welcomed pause for reflection on the events that are taking place and keep the book from being a mere listing of dates and events. I teach a course on J.R.R. Tolkien and have found Untangling Tolkien a valuable resource, since it covers the entire history of Middle-earth: what comes before The Hobbit and what takes place after The Lord of The Rings. Bravo Mr. Perry, I look forward to reading your other books.

Superb, exhaustive chronology of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings saga. Perry does a superior job in untangling a number of thorny chronological issues in Tolkien's narrative, and he employs some fine literary detective work in reconstructing what events are happening across Middle Earth on any given date. Especially admirable is his reconstruction of how much moonlight there was during each day of Frodo and Sam's journey into Mordor.

In addition to chronology, Perry supplies a lot of background information about Tolkien's themes and sources, as well as biographical tidbits about Tolkien. For example, there are fascinating discussions of Tolkien's views of technology, freedom, and totalitarianism. Perry also discusses Tolkien's stance toward the misuse of Germanic myths by the Nazis.

This is a great resource for Tolkien-lovers everywhere.

An amazing accomplishment by a dedicated Tolkien fan.

That is how I'd sum up the book Untanging Tolkien. Michael Perry has first unraveled all Tolkien's "dates" -- which can be extrapolated from phases of the moon -- and then knit them together again in a cohesive outline, presented in much greater detail than Tolkien's own timeline (found buried in Appendix A of LOTR). By incorporating information from other Tolkien writings, the author of Untangling Tolkien collates additional facts about all the characters and the circumstances surrounding the War of the Ring, folding them all into this detailed chronology. He includes material that sheds light on possible parallels between Tolkien's work and events that were contemporary, and he provides original commentary that suggests some additional motivations for Tolkien's characters. Sidebars offer references to every source for the information presented and for each conclusion the author has drawn.

I found the format, with quick-reference bulleted lists and clearly delineated sections and subheadings, well-organized and easy to use.

NOTE: I read the third printing that was published in May 2004. Apparently the author has corrected many of the errors that David Bratman objected to (below). You won't find a better overview or a more throrough treatment of time and dates in LOTR than Perry provides in this book.

This book is layed out as a chronological record of the events covered by Tolkein's masterpiece with prefaces that explain the calender system created by Tolkein and its conversion to our more mundane (and possibly inferior) system. The type is clear, and margin citations clear and present for every entry. It's primary utility, at which it succeeds admirably, is as a kind of radiograph of Tolkein's work that reveals its astonishing complexity more clearly and allows one to admire, and more importantly, explore the book itself more quickly, easily, and deeply.

The book also contains copious notes inline with the chronology. These vary from informative to tangential, but at worst do not detract from the book's primary function. Mr. Perry is perhaps foremost as Lewis scholar, and so C.S. Lewis, a close acquaintance and friend of Tolkein, makes a number of appearances. Also making appearances in the notes are William Shakespeare and Winston Churchill.

All in all, a unique book which will save anyone who wants to do an in depth study of LotR a lot of time.

A year-by-year, later day-by-day, chronicle of the war against Sauron from the founding of the Shire to the glorious conclusion seems at the outset like a good idea. Perry calls LOTR's Appendix B, the Tale of Years, "far from complete" but it covers the whole period: what he means is that it's not detailed enough for him. Appendix B won't tell you which day Sam cooked coney for Frodo; Perry will.

But alas, the book does not stop there. The entries are written as bullet lists like a PowerPoint presentation, and many add pointless little flowcharts such as two-generation family trees. They reduce Tolkien's magnificently complex subcreation into a giant mass of undifferentiated trivia. And each yearly or daily entry comes with its commentary, whether directly relevant, side points, broader considerations, or dogmatic essays in applicability. The unrelieved banality and inappropriateness of these must be read to be believed; as also the author's clumsy, grammatically inept style, and his smug superiority to the characters. (He frequently criticizes the good guys' "blunders," all of them more complex than he implies.)

There's actually some good chronological analysis and speculation hiding in here. But how can someone who knows his Tolkien that well say that the wizards were Valar, or that Rohan gave Isengard to Saruman (it wasn't theirs to give, and Saruman was made its warden, not a freeholder), that Boromir and Faramir had a sibling rivalry (Tolkien specifically says not), or suggest that Galadriel should have sent daily eagles to check up on the Fellowship?

These are not isolated examples: the bloopers and misconceived ideas go on and on. The whole book is like that: it has the soul of a PowerPoint presentation. I can't recommend it on any terms.

One can read many books covering the campaigns and personalities of World War I and still come away with an incomplete picture of what the war was really about. The strategies, the national goals of the participants, and the political fallout - ushering in the destruction of empires that had lasted for hundreds of years, Bolshevism, fascism and Naziism, with all that was to come out of that - are all obviously important, but they do not reach down far enough into the basic and elemental experience of the common soldier in the field.

Jon E. Lewis has done a commendable job of editing over 180 first hand accounts of what the war was like, almost all of the pieces being written by average men and women who participated on every level of the conflict. The most poignant are from letters home, diary entries, and reminisces after the fact, coming from soldiers, nurses, and low-level commanders, telling of the hell of the trenches, the disease, the constant and maddening shelling, and the death, dismemberment, and maiming all around. The picture that arises out of the constant repitition of one account after another, is senseless, sickening, wasteful and pointless tragedy.

There are also excerpts of better-known memoires, particularly from Churchill, TE Lawrence, Foch, and finally, in a 33-page indulgence at the very end of the book, from Douglas Haig. Coming after 450 pages of slaughter and annihilation, so much of it caused by stupid and unimaginative "leadership" by such as Haig, this final summary of lessons learned and recap of the war effort as led by himself is enough to sicken one. It remains a mystery why this man was not lynched by his own soldiers.

The heros of the book are the average soldier in the field, bearing the brunt of the savagery day after day, dealing with conditions no animal could survive in, regardless of which side of the conflict they were on. For Lewis, there is essentially no difference in the experiences of a French vs a German vs an English vs a Russian soldier. Lewis does not deal in politics or assigning 'blame' to anyone, but rather deals at the micro level with the plight of everyman. The impact is crushing. One comes away from the book with a full and complete understanding of the old saying about the British army, 'lions led by donkeys.'

It's a powerful book and well worth the time invested. Lewis' spare editing and insightful though brief comments add to the wealth of material presented here as well, and overall has done an impressive job.

World War I is a difficult war to understand, and it's almost as if it gets even more and more difficult the more one reads about it. It's without a doubt my favorite war (because yes, of course one can have such a thing as a favorite war), but it's also the one war that I just cannot seem to come to terms with, really. Perhaps especially because of the way the war was fought; the freakishly large number of men who were sacrificed when they advanced over open terrain against vicious machinegun nests, got exposed to menacing gas attacks in their trenches, or were blown to bloody pieces during enormous artillery attacks often lasting several days in a row.

It was the first modern war, but it was often fought using old tactics, and thus the human losses became greater than in any other war fought up until then. And the bizarre slaughter of an entire generation lasted for four years! Small wonder it's so difficult to comprehend what was really going on. These days, the death of a mere twenty or so American soldiers in a single day in Baghdad make headlines all over the world, but during World War I it wasn't a rare occasion with tens of thousands of casualties in a single day. What does this mean? Were human lives simply not as valuable than as they are today? Because, and not to in any way promote the Iraqi cause or scorn U.S. casualties (since all fatalities caused by the madness of war are equally stupid), what is a mere twenty deaths compared to what war used to be like?

Anyhow, The War To End All Wars was originally published back in 1968, and in this edition some corrections have been made here and there. But, one thing that hasn't been changed or corrected is the language in which it was written, and in the today's politically correct society it's thus strange to see how Edward M. Coffman writes "Negroes" and "Indians" instead of "African Americans" and "Native Americans". As a white European I'm not particularly upset (not upset at all, actually), but I'm sure many others are.

And not only because of the way the book was written. As with any other well-researched book about war, The War To End All Wars contains a great deal of outrageous facts. For instance, the following about the recruiting of all the new soldiers needed for the enormous army that were hastily put together, when the government:

"... declared that 47,3 per cent of the whites and 89 per cent of the Negroes were below the mental age of thirteen and, according to the standards of the day, morons. Either this pioneering testing venture was invalid or most American men in their twenties were very stupid." (pg.61)

Or how about the following order that was issued after a great deal of men had either deserted or simply refused to continue on with the senseless butchering:

"When men run away in front of the enemy, officers should take summary action to stop it, even to the point of shooting men down who are caught in such disgraceful conduct. No orders need be published on the subject, but it should be made known to many young officers that they must do whatever is required to prevent it." (pg.333)

The book deals exclusively, as the title says, with the American involvement in World War I, but beware, if you're looking for eye-witness accounts or descriptions of what actually happened at the front, then you must first be prepared to read about 200 pages filled with politics and endless descriptions of all the preparatory work taking place before the first U.S. soldiers were shipped across the Atlantic. And the accounts that do feature in the text after 200 pages are not very graphic or thorough. Obviously the politics behind it all is worth knowing, but if you're looking for gory battle scenes you're in for a disappointment.

Just like the war in itself was a disappointment. In the end, it never was the war to end all wars, just another display of human madness and our inability to live peacefully side by side with our fellow man.

In the last few days of the war a letter from a woman to an unknown German soldier was found on his body. Her words are bound to be repeated again and again, until this world of ours is destroyed by our very own hands and human civilization as we know it ceases to exist:

"It seems apparent that the dawn of peace is drawing nearer, and we dare entertain more hopes that this the most hideous of all wars, this vile murdering, which scorns and derides all humanity; which places us, no matter how highly cultured we pretended to be, lower than the savages, will end sometime and we can feel that we are human beings again." (pg.336)

I learned a great deal of the US involvement in World War 1 from this book. I have been trying to research my grandfather's service in WW 1 and found this book very useful. While it is somewhat drawn out in certain sections, it is very informative in other sections. From the information I had, I was able to piece together where my grandfather served and the battles he was involved in while there. I would reccomend this book only to those seriously looking at the US role in WW 1.

Coffman provides an interesting perspective on the First World War. His reader will find no discussion on the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand or information of the Schlieffen Plan. He will instead find details on the Selective Service Act and the famous American air ace Eddie Rickenbacker. Throughout this work, Coffman shows the United States as an important player in the Great War, and refreshingly he does not rehash the European aspects of the war about which so many others have written. Furthermore he is effective in his task, and his reader will have a better understanding of the American World War I military experience. Primarily Coffman examines the US Army, but he also devotes time to the Navy, Air Force, and the Marines. The book gives glimpses at the performance of each branch, and gives brief amounts of information about technological innovations during the war - especially in the realms of naval and air power. As one would expect, Coffman also writes about the major American military leaders such as John J. Pershing and William J. Donovan, but more interesting than his accounts of these men are his vignettes of common soldiers. Coffman obviously devoted a great deal of time conducting interviews with and reading the journals and letters of veterans. These portraits allow the reader to gain a real sense of the military experience of the Americans who fought in the war. Coffman's monograph is an excellent account of the United States during World War I. It is well written and researched, and it even includes enough maps that descriptions of battles can be understood. Its only drawback, and a minor one at that, is that the reader must already have a general understanding of the events in the Great War. Of course Coffman did not set out to write a general history of the war, but a general reader would need more background in order to truly gain the sense of America's wartime experience about which he writes.

On the back of this book, Stephen Ambrose praises this work as a definitive work on the US involvement in World War I, I should have been suspicious of its content from that point on.
Coffman's book beyond the first couple chapters is immensely not readable, and at times absolutely confusing. The early part of the book rushes through how the US ultimately came to be involved in the war, and only mentions the Lusitania, the resumption of German unrestricted submarine warfare, the Zimmerman telegram and social factors inside the US among groups that thought war wouldn't be such a bad idea in order to gain premacy for their viewpoint, fleetingly. It also doesn't really discuss Wilson's rejected attempts at mediation of the conflict and his realization that in order to reshape Europe in the way he advocated, the US needed to be involved in the conflict and have "troops on the ground." Coffman also doesn't discuss how demonizing portrayals of Germany and German soldiers influenced American perception as well as the fact that due to the blockade of Germany and the cutting of the trans-atlantic cable by the British, Germany could not dispell any of these demonizing tales spread in the US of the German army killing civilians and bombarding religious and other historical places with reckless disreguard.
What Coffman does give us in this work is a monotonous tome about the organization of the AEF and American air corps. The majority of this book is focused on nothing more than logistics and how the Allied powers needed American force very badly and therefore wanted to hasten our entrance into the war and allow troops to be commanded by French or English commanders, and not seperately. He also drones on about the internal conflict between Pershing and the British and French generals over this and other aspects.
To compound this boring tome on logistics, Coffman jumps around in his story. He finally gets to combat done by American pilots, and then in his next chapter begins with an extensive biographical sketch of American armed forces leaders, completely confusing the reader. By the time Coffman gets to actual combat participated in to any large extent by American forces, he stuffs all of this information into one chapter, completely losing the reader.
Coffman's maps included in the text are also few and far between as well as horribly designed. The maps don't clearly show the advance of US forces on each day of the battle being discussed, and do not include where the German trenches are relative to the Americans.
In short, this may have been a good book thirty years ago, but now it's hopelessly outdated and confusing. There needs to be another scholar in the mode of Martin Gilbert write the story of the AEF and American air corps.

In recent decades, social historians have strayed from the study of key historical figures and prominent events and instead focused their efforts on the common folk. Incorporating the methodologies of sociology and other disciplines within the social sciences, historians have made tremendous strides in promoting a better understanding of the masses. A few military historians have followed suit. Instead of writing solely about battles, campaigns, and the generals who plotted the strategies and won or lost, they turned their attention on who made up the rank and file. Edward M. Coffman dominates this breed of new military historian. His book _The War to End All Wars: The American Military Experience in World War I_ is a scholarly and brilliantly written tour de force; his collective group study: the American citizen soldier.First published in 1968 at the height of America's involvement in Vietnam, Coffman set the president for this new style of military history. His work is now a classic. As the subtitle suggests, Coffman tells the story of the whole American experience beginning in the spring of 1917 up to the signing of the Armistice. Throughout the book, Coffman remains focused on the American soldier and the planning, administration, and organization of his primary fighting force; the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF).As a result, the political machinations of coalition warfare and high level strategic decisions receives only enough attention to place his subject in proper perspective.The creation of the AEF, the largest American armed force ever sent to fight on foreign soil up to that time, is a marvel in and of itself. Coffman covers all aspects of this tremendous achievement. General John J. Pershing sailed for France with what amounted to a understrengthed division: the 1st Division. The AEF grew to a corps sized force, and evntually the First and Second Armies. In April 1917, the AEF consisted of 200,000 soldiers. By November 1918, it contained nearly 4,000,000. In addition to discussions on the War Department in 1917, and the stateside expansion of the United States Army, the author also covers with clever succunctness other important topics. These subjects include: the meteoric sculpting of the massive AEF command and supply structure in France; the disagreements between the General Staff in Washington and Pershing's Headquarters in Chaumont, France. Coffman also includes separate chapters on the American Navy and the air war. Coffman ties these themes together with a flowing battle narrative of the major campaigns the AEF fought in France as well as, some of the lessor known battles. It is the topics relating to the social history of the American soldier, however, that Coffman excels. The author covers such topics as the draft, procurment of officers, the controversial amalgamation of Negro troops into French units early in the war (Pershing venomously fought attempts by the British and French to amalgamate American soldiers as canon fodder into Allied units. He said Americans will fight as Americans led by American officers. Not so, unfortunately, for Negro troops), and consciences objectors. From a social standpoint, Coffman also examines: the establishment of recreation facilities for the soldiers to discourage vice, liquor and prostitutes; venereal disease, and the culture clashes between the French and the newly arrived Americans. Coffman outlines the pros and cons of the American participation but, unlike some critics, is sympathetic to Pershing and the AEF. He is most sensitive to the role the fledgling American debut played in turning the tide and eventual victory for the Allies. Coffman makes every attempt to reveal the gratitude the French had for the American presence. Among the plethora of sources consulted, the author refers to numerous diaries and memoirs from the ordinary rank and file. An extensive "Essay on Sources" in which Coffman not only lists the archival material utilized, but also divulges how the information was applied to individual chapters, is a consolation for the lack of footnotes.The creation and deployment of the AEF in World War I is a watershed in American military history. If you want to learn not only how it was done, but also who made up its main body, this is the book to read. No one does the social history of the American army like Coffman.