Scott Addington

The Great War 100 The First world War in Infographics by Scott Addington. This is a graphical presentation of the history of World War I. The intent of the book is to make the history adaptable t0 21st century tastes. Us moderns are not amenable to reading 900 pages tomes about history . We are after history in 140 character bites. In terms of presentation I give the book a grade of A. It is highly readable and makes the details it selects to cover highly digestible. However on its selection of details to cover I give it only a grade of C for the facts it decides to cover. It fails compare apples to apples. For example its gives a wonderful breakdown of British naval losses by class of ship but fails to give the same graphic or its equivalent for German losses. It also devotes 2 pages of graphics to the German use of Zeppelins as bombers and gives no information on Allied use of bombers. The book pays no attention to the economic aftermath of the war. The book makes no attempt to contextualize any of the facts it tries to present. It seldom says why a given factoid is important to know. Nor does it cite any source for any of the facts it presents. Beyond these flaws which should horrify any historian sadly I found the book fun to read. It gave me a quick overview of the war. The data was presented in a way anyone wanting a totally superficial understanding of the war would want. The book is a car wreck of history and most folks like looking at car wrecks.… (més)

As I read Scott Addington’s World War One: A Layman’s Guide I could not help but write this review in my head. I highlighted relevant statements and sentences and became more and more annoyed at the flippant manner in which the book was written. Of course the lack of footnotes annoyed me even more. I would read sentences like “German casualties are not known, but are thought to be similar in numbers” and I would ask, why are they not known? Were the records destroyed, were none kept; I think that is part of the story. Then I discovered one of the mysteries of the Kindle. When you start a Kindle book, it takes you to the beginning of the main text skipping over the cover, the table of contents, and anything else that may be there. In the case of this book, that everything else included an introduction. So I went and read the introduction after I had finished the book and found that most of my complaints were not bugs, but features. Addington specifically addressed all of my major complaints, the book was “written in a more conversational style” and “It doesn’t pretend to be academic in nature.” This explained sentences like, “the Austro-Hungarians were jumping up and down with rage.” The book was also “Unashamedly bias[ed] towards the Western Front,” thereby explaining the short shrift given to the Eastern front and the total neglect of Africa and the Middle East. Lastly, I agree with Addington that “people who hold a decent knowledge of the subject should perhaps walk away and read something else as you are not the intended audience.” So if you know little or nothing about the First World War and can handle entire nationalities “jumping up and down with rage” and the like, this book might be for you. If you can get past the writing style it does provide a decent overview of the war on the Western Front.… (més)