A good overview of the war itself — that is, the strategies, tactics, and battles of the war, despite a lack of useful maps (better maps are available from http://www.firstworldwar.com/maps/). But Keegan seems to be clueless about most everything outside of the battles themselves. At the end of the book, he’s still pondering the “mystery” of the war — why it was fought, how it was that soldiers sustained themselves in the face of the horrors of trench warfare, largely, as far as I can tell, because he elected not to explore those questions in his own research.

Keegan’s book provides a good overview of the war, but to really understand what events led up to the war, how individuals dealt with the nightmare, how people not serving in the various militaries lived their lives, and even much about the details of any particular battle, you’ll have to look elsewhere.