(No offense, John Keegan).īeing on Goodreads, I’ve gotten some really good recommendations on WWI books. I should know, since this is my second one-volume history of WWI in a row, and it is far more enjoyable than the first. However, it is a great first book to read on World War I.

I do not want this to be the last book I read on any subject. I do not want this to be the last book I read on World War I. The story behind that isn’t important (in short: it involves me talking my wife out of a B&N gift card in exchange for cleaning the bathtub). But then, obviously, I bought it instead. In short, I was about to put the book down and go about my merry way. What exactly does the resident historian do? Does he find the ice roads for each season of Ice Road Truckers? The last time I tried to watch the History Channel, they served up an all-day marathon of Pawn Stars, which not only has nothing to do with history, but actually works against it (pawn shops are to history what Wal-Mart developments are to Civil War Battlefields). I’m not even sure what that’s supposed to mean. The author, too, was mysterious to me, an enigma veiled by initials.įurthermore, one of the cover blurbs proudly states that this book is a top-choice of the “resident historian” of the History Channel. For one, I’d never heard of it before, in any mention of single-volume histories of the war (well-known entries include books by John Keegan, SLA Marshall, and Martin Gilbert). Meyer’s A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914-1918.Īt first glance, it doesn’t have a lot to recommend it. So there I was, in the book aisle, facing my reality, pondering my last historical obsession, and the last book with which to indulge it. Other than an obsession with the last years of my carefree youth. A few weeks ago, while at Barnes & Noble, I was looking for a good book on World War I, fully acknowledging that World War I might be the last frivolous historical obsession I ever have. Lately, I’ve been obsessed with World War I. At least the last book that doesn’t involve talking bears or talking cows or talking bean-pods or whatever talking creature populates the books that babies read these days.

And I thought about that as I finished this book: how it might be the last book I ever read.

My wife and I are expecting a baby any day now.

A World Undone by G.J. Meyer