Jörn Leonhard, Professor of European History at the University of Freiburg, begins and ends with the Greek myth of Pandora’s box, and the “swarm of evils that rushed out [from it] and spread in a flash over the earth. . . . “ It was only with difficulty, he notes at the end of this monumental and comprehensive history of WWI, that the extremes of violence unleashed in August, 1814 could be trapped again, and a peaceful international order established. But alas, not for long.

This history begins with an exploration of its antecedents to WWI in an introductory chapter called “Legacies.” Here the author discusses the widespread emancipation movement; transition from monarchies to popular political participation in government; the rise of the nation-state and nationalism; the global spread of progress; and changing self-image of individuals, to list a few. He also explores the changing territorial boundaries with accompanying changes in balances of power, along with rivalry for territories outside of Europe. He devotes a great deal of verbiage to the “Incubation of the War,” with various actors in Europe making calculations and changes based on their assessments on what the others were doing, which was both fed by and increased a “crisis of trust.”

He then goes into “Drift and Escalation”; “Stasis and Movement;” “Wearing Down and Holding Out”; “Expansion and Erosion”; “Onrush and Collapse”; “Outcomes”; “Memories”; and “Burdens.”

In that last section, summing up, Leonhard remarks that there has been a tendency for WWII and the horrors of the Holocaust to be superimposed on the memory of WWI: “there the First World War is not the past but the pre-past.” Regardless, he maintains, we are still today heirs of that [first] war, which seemed to legitimize violence as a response to social change.

The book has extensive references, and includes maps and photographs within the text.

Evaluation: One would be hard-pressed to find a history of WWI so exhaustively comprehensive as this one, as its size - over 900 pages without notes - would suggest. This makes it rather difficult to review except for the barest of summations, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t merit delving into on your own. Unlike many books that concentrate on battle strategy and tactics, and/or “great men” driving history, this history takes place on a loftier plane>. It doesn’t ignore those usual emphases, but puts them into a much broader context than that in which they are usually reported. ( )

For the English-language reader today there is no shortage of histories surveying the First World War. Thanks to the centenary, several new volumes have been added to the fine books written over the years, giving readers a choice of works ranging from those of contemporary authors such as [a:Winston Churchill|2834066|Winston Churchill|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1236471505p2/2834066.jpg], [a:C.R.M.F. Cruttwell|1421692|C.R.M.F. Cruttwell|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-82093808bca726cb3249a493fbd3bd0f.png], and [a:B.H. Liddell Hart|176217|B.H. Liddell Hart|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1261136195p2/176217.jpg] to more modern studies by historians such as [a:John Keegan|4619485|John Keegan|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1332081125p2/4619485.jpg], [a:Hew Strachan|55440|Hew Strachan|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1372961140p2/55440.jpg], [a:David Stevenson|13858|David Stevenson|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png], and [a:G. J. Meyer|11882188|G. J. Meyer|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]. Yet even when these authors have pursued a balanced approach and incorporated available German-language sources into their account, they usually have an inherent British or Allied focus resulting from a combination of factors.

This is just one reason why Jörn Leonhard's book stands out as a history of the conflict. Originally published in German in 2014, its translation into English offers readers of the language a survey of the war from an historian coming from a perspective rooted in a different set of sources and influences than those of his British and American counterparts. Yet this is just one of the many distinguishing characteristics of his fine work, which offers what is easily the most comprehensive single-volume history of the war yet written. Within its pages he offers an account that begins with an examination of the factors that lead to the war and ends with its postwar legacy. Along the way he discusses the war in all of its myriad aspects, from the politics and economics of the conflict to its effects on society and culture. No front is left unexamined, and all of it is integrated into a narrative that moves with considerable fluidity from topic to topic.

The result is a work that is massive in scope yet one that offers an insightful account of the war that defined the 20th century. There is little that escapes his coverage, which is informed throughout by a perspective that will be fresh for many English-language readers of the war. It makes for a book that has set the new standard by which histories of the First World War are judged, and one likely to remain the standard for some time to come. ( )

This is a tough book for me to rate. Honestly, it was not a pleasant and enjoyable reading experience for me. Nevertheless, it is a meticulously researched and exhaustively detailed book on a seminal historical event. If you are the scholarly sort, with a deep and abiding interest in World War I, or even history in general, this is likely the “go-to” book on the subject. On the other hand, if you are reading simply for enjoyment, look elsewhere.

This book is a real doorstop, incredibly dense (not just in the depth of its subject, but physically) and difficult to even hold when reading in bed. It is heavy and cumbersome with over 900 pages of text and another hundred or two in endnotes, bibliographies and indexes. I read a lot of very long books, but this one took me seemingly forever to read, such was the complexity of the subject matter and the author’s treatment of it. If you read it at night, it will often times put you to sleep after 15-20 minutes.

I rate it at 5 stars, because I believe it accomplishes what the author set out to do; that is to produce a comprehensive analysis of the factors leading to, involved in and following the First World War. That being said, I believe the target audience for this work is relatively small. ( )