false 35 52 47 true 5621529 read 2 true 4575276 currently-reading 3 true 4575275 to-read http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/78550464 Dog Dirt Doris (Paperback) by H.O. Ward
bookshelves: currently-reading
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/78550630 The View from Castle Rock (Hardcover) by Alice Munro
bookshelves: to-read
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/76885492 to: Map of Bones (Sigma Force #2) by James Rollins
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/76885378 to: Ruined: A Ghost Story (Hardcover) by Paula Morris
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/event/show/61701-the-history-book-club-new-spotlighted-book-discussion-begins Rick said "yes" to attending the event: THE HISTORY BOOK CLUB - NEW SPOTLIGHTED BOOK DISCUSSION BEGINS.
date: February 21, 2010 08:00AM
location: The United States
description: The History Book Club currently has as its spotlighted book No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front to World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin. This event notification is, however, for the next Spotlighted book discussion beginning February 21, 2010 titled The First World War by Sir John Desmond Patrick Keegan OBE.

PW said that the book was a "riveting narrative that puts diaries, letters and action reports to good use, British military historian Keegan ...more The History Book Club currently has as its spotlighted book No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front to World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin. This event notification is, however, for the next Spotlighted book discussion beginning February 21, 2010 titled The First World War by Sir John Desmond Patrick Keegan OBE.

PW said that the book was 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 ease and equally generous and sympathetic at probing 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 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?"

We hope you can join us to discuss these questions during our book discussion on The First World War by Keegan beginning February 21, 2010.(less)
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/75726722 to: The Crusades Through Arab Eyes (Paperback) by Amin Maalouf
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/75727941 to: The Geographer's Library (Paperback) by Jon Fasman
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/75728590 Grace [Eventually]: Thoughts on Faith (Hardcover) by Anne Lamott
bookshelves: to-read
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/75727122 The Crossing (Paperback) by Faith Mortimer
bookshelves: to-read
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