Brian Bond (a protege of Sir Michael Howard and retired professor of military history in the War Studies Department of King's College, London) has written an essential contribution to the historiography of the First World War. The war has produced entire libraries of literature, plays, films and memoirs and Bond argues that these have come to dominate the study of the subject rather more than any serious investigation of the conduct of the fighting and the thinking that went behind the organisation of the opposing armies. It is only relatively recently that any serious study has been made of the fighting methods that were introduced (hyperbolic odes to the exploits of German stormtroopers notwithstanding), the levels of training and equipment and the serious thought processes that lay behind them.

Bond addresses several areas including;

- Whether the common perception that the Great War was an unnecessary and foolish war is correct.
- The impact of personal memoirs and especially the impact of the war poets on the historiography of the war.
- The extent to which the war became a totem of the left in the 1960s and the extent to which this has coloured the study of the subject.

Bond also addresses the ludicrously distorted image of the war that is posessed by the average "man on the street", a view which often bears next to no relation to reality. He deconstructs a number of areas which often combine to constitute the average person's knowledge of the war - Blackadder, Oh! What a Lovely War, the changing war in which history is studied in schools, opinion articles by ill informed tabloid newspapers and finds most of them dangerously distorting (and worryingly persistent) if we seek to realise any sort of balanced understanding of the conflict. He points to the fact that the war has become emotionalised like almost no other and tries to come to an explanation of why this is. He takes on much of the received wisdom and the results will no doubt infuriate many people who are incapable of moving outside the ridiculously emotionalised box in which the war is normally viewed. Above all, he tries to move the debate out of the field of social history and sociology where many of the best known works on the war have languished and into the field of serious military history and war studies, where it belongs. Sadly, it may well be that existing views are so heavily entrenched that the game isn't worth the candle.

This is a very important book and one which should be read by everybody with an interest in the First World War.

In this survey of the interaction between military, political and social forces in the hundred years that started with the rise of Bismarkian Prussia, a good overview is provided of the major trends and developments, these being well-anchored in the main historical events. A strength of the book is that it preserves the correct balance between detail and overview - enough detail to maintain interest and colour, enough overview to ensure that developments are always seen in the wider historical, cultural and political context. A criticism of the book is however that by an excessive focus on the European scene it underplays the extent to which developments elsewhere - most notably the American Civil War and the Russo-Japanese War - could have profoundly influenced the course of European Military and Political thinking, had they been better analysed, with incalculable consequences for the conduct of World War One. One also notes how the indications as to the global potential of the United States which arose from the Spanish-American War seem to as much ignored today as they were at the time. These minor criticisms aside, the book would provide an excellent introduction to anyone undertaking a study of Modern European history and seeking pointers for further areas to explore as regards the impact of military developments.