This is a wonderfully written book detailing how five exceptional American individuals literally transformed America from a country characterized by isolationism and a narrow, parochial perspective into the major player on the world stage. All five came to age in an America still locked in the self-absorbed issues of the 19th century, yet each grew with the needs of the times to become instruments for monumental change.

The most interesting aspect of this book is the fashion in which the author sets out substantive proof for the "exceptional man" thesis in history. So here we had five such individuals interacting contemporaneously and profoundly changing the world as a result. Of course, this isn't to suggest that they somehow aggressively pounded the world into their chosen image, for nothing is farther from the truth. This was a time when many titans strode the stage, men like Hitler, Churchill, Stalin, Mussolini and Hirohito. Yet the fact that these five succeeded in vanquishing Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito demonstrates the extent of their accomplishment.

Yet these five men successfully confronted the most urgent and manifest challenges of their time, from FDR's New Deal and transformation of the national government into an active instrument for change. It is no accident that three of the five, Eisenhower, Marshall, and MacArthur, were military professionals, each of whom played an unique and indispensable role in defeating the Axis powers. That each then continued to contribute after the end of the hostilities is more proof of their sense of personal responsibility and need to serve the nation in whatever manner they could. each had a sense of time and place, as well as an appreciation for the unique historical circumstances he found himself in, whether it be MacArthur in Asia, who over decades became a kind of American Centurion, or Harry Truman, thrust onto the national and then world stage most unexpectedly.

In a time like ours, when we are surrounded by public pygmies like Clinton, Gore, the Bushes, Newt Gingrich, and those nine comedians over in Supreme Court land striving to be giants, it's instructive to remember that we weren't always hampered by such venal, self-interested, and morally corrupt leaders. Indeed, it is refreshing, hopeful, and perhaps even a bit nolstalgic to remember that America is not necessarily the eternal land of manipulative mental midgets, and that it once was a place whose titans strode and literally saved the world. Read this book and remember.

I read Fromkin's A Peace to End All Peace in preparation for travelling to the Middle East earlier this summer. This book continues his ability to bring history to life, with details on the diaries, conversations, and interactions of both the known major players in the World Wars, as well as those that were influential but behind the scenes.

I was already fairly conversant in the major events of the time, but even so, Fromkin's retelling is set in a class by itself by his portraits of the leaders of the time: Wilson, FDR, TR, Churchill, MacArthur, Ike. By bringing together painstaking research as well as acectodes, it's amazing to see how much just one man can electrify and fire up a nation -- FDR yanking America out of the Depression, or Churchill stalwartly leading Britain through WWII as notable examples.

This book is sort of an in-between point between Fromkin's almost too-detailed history in A Peace to End All Peace and his recent ultra-summarized history of the world (150 pages, well worth your time) in The Way of The World. I'd recommend them all highly, but in order from most-summarized to least.

In this marvellous book, David Fromkin tells the story of how the United States made the journey from introverted isolationist to global superpower. He begins his account with the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, whose accession to office as a result of the assassination of President McKinley must be regarded as one of the most significant accidents in history. The tension between TR's "big stick" internationalism and Woodrow Wilson's more idealistic version is vividly described, and Fromkin does an excellent job of showing how the ideas (and policies) of FDR, Truman and their generation were both indebted to and yet reactions against the ideas of the great scholar-President. America's reluctant path to the centre of the world stage is presented as a mixture of fait accompli, idealism and enlightened self interest. It is a great story, and Mr. Fromkin does it justice. Warmly recommended.

"A Peace to End All Peace" is David Fromkin's detailed account of political and military events from the turn of the century to 1922 that ultimately created the modern Middle East. While I enjoyed Fromkin's admirable recounting of key players and events, I was disappointed by the book's narrow focus and surprising lack of analysis. A superb historian in many ways, Fromkin evidently believed that the details of this colorful period and location would largely explain themselves. As a result, the reader is left with a wealth of interesting facts about this period in Middle Eastern history, but little analysis.
For this kind of perspective, one is probably better off reading books such as Karen Armstrong's "The Battle for God".

Despite such shortcomings, "A Peace to End All Peace" remains a superb read. Fromkin provides a lucid and colorful portrait of the priniciple players including Churchill, Enver, Attaturk, and others. I was especially fascinated with Fromkin's sympathetic portrait of Turkey's surprising military success throughout most of the First World War. Under provisioned, and technologically behind, Turkey may have set the first modern example of an underdeveloped Eastern nation using politics, ingenuity, and brilliant tactics to fend off a more powerful Western enemy.

Like the other reviewers here, I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about the modern Middle East. Fromkin takes a series of complicated and diverse events during and after WWI and creates a nicely readable narrative about the creation of the modern Middle East, though you can get lost at times in all the different actors and places if they are not already familiar to you. I especially enjoyed some of the new perspectives on well-known people and events such as T.E. "Lawrence of Arabia", Churchill, Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson and Gallipoli. The misunderstandings and rivalries which charactarized relations between the Western powers and the Arab world during this period, and among the Western powers themselves, seem very similar to some of the things going on today.

This book is a fascinating journey into roots of the current problems in the middle east. "A Peace to End All Peace" reads like a fiction novel and is very concise. Fromkin helps to explain in detail the great maneuvering and the politics that resulted in the downfall of the last great Islamic empire, and the breaking up of its territories, the effects of which can be seen to this day: The israeli-palestinian conflict, and the rise of the now corrupt house of saud which led to 9/11 to name a few. Get this book if you wish to get a better understanding of why people are blowing themselves up in the middle east, and also some of the intrigues and conflicts in one of the greatest wars in the history of this planet.

This book is not only a brief history of humanity described in 8 grand stages but also a "how-to" book for western civilization's success in the 21st century. Very profound and insightful is the author in his interpretations of the past and in his vision of the future's possibilities. For me, this book has a permanent place in my library - a gem of a book for history buffs.

A minor suggestion is that the last two paragraphs in the book should be shifted to the front as the preface. Also, I might suggest to future readers to read the short summaries of each of the first 8 grand steps of humanity's progress located in chapter 10 or 11 before reading the main chapters themselves.

For those who occasionally like their history in the largest of big-picture perspectives, this is the book to read next. No wasted words or ideas--a kind of poem. I found it thrilling. Fromkin's ability to communicate what could well be the great themes in the story of the world is stunning. You finish the book feeling as if you've just sat through a Greek Tragedy--purged of fear and pity, in a heightened state of wonder. Nothing trivial gets in the way of "The Way of thre World." You've been told the story as if from God's perspective. A great, great book. I'd like to go on and read everything David Fromkin has written.

This is how history should be written. It takes a perspective as wide as can possibly be - from the birth of the universe and pre-history to the present - and manages to make sense of the whole, in just 220 pages. What is most impressive is Professor Fromkin's unobtrusive insistence that history - contrary to the charlatans of the post-structuralist school, and the increasing specialisation of history as a discipline - has a meaning and a narrative, coupled with his treatment of non-western societies. That is true multiculturalism, as opposed to the know-nothing version, so shamefully promulgated in some academies, that decries the very notion of civilisation. The book nicely refers to scholars and to stories in the press (e.g. of fossil finds) that the critical newspaper reader might have seen, and draws them into a thrilling narrative.

My one main criticism of a splendid book is that, for such a fine writer and skilled historian, Professor Fromkin is surprisingly idiosyncratic in his use of punctuation, and I find this obtrusive. He uses commas, colons and semi-colons almost indiscriminately, rather than with care and accuracy. The publisher's editor should have picked this up; perhaps he will, for a paperback edition.

For an informative and un biased read on the Kosovo and balkan issue, there are much better books out there than this one. For one, you're well more than half way through the book before the author even gets to the Kosovo issue, although the first part is a fairly unbiased quick refresher of the last century's wars. Once the author finally does get to the Kosovo topic, it is a quick and uninformative heavily biased review that hardly reflects on the true issues of Kosovo, Serbia and the former republics of Yugoslavia. To save you the time of reading it i'll lay out the most ignorant statement in the book: from page 190: "If the US and NATO had not intervened, the Serbs would have settled the Kosovo issue, by ethnic cleansing. The Kosovars would have been pushed into Albania and forcibly reunited with their own people. Kosovo would be owned and inhabited exclusively by Serbs. Monstrous though it would have been to let the Milosevic regime profit from its crimes, it would all be over." Right. And the humanitarian disasters in Macedonia and Albania which hardly have the means to support their own people? The Turkish-Kurd, Spanish-Basque, Albanian-Greek issues that may be affected by such an outcome? It would be over according to this author. Common ignorance from people that weren't there or don't really know. For a good read on Balkan topics i suggest 'Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation', KOSOVO or BOSNIA by Noel Malcholm. For a good read on the atrocities of what goes on in that part of the world how about any chronology of Srebrenica.

I found Fromkin's writing style to be unorganized. He has a lot of information to give (not all of which is dependable, by the way), but he skips around from the 20th century to the Middle Ages to all the time periods in-between, and quite frankly, I found it a bit hard to follow at times.
Fromkin is very confident about his information, and seems to think he's a definitive source on the subject. The book left me with a feeling that I was learning from an expert in Balkan politics--but beware. As a soldier stationed in the Balkans I can tell you, that if you're basing your knowledge of this region off of this book--or any one book--you've only really scratched the surface.

I have read many similar books before.

The book itself has very little to do with Kososvo at all. Tito for example gets less then a page. The way he ruled maybe a line. That he ruled by killing over a million Yugoslavians is never even mentioned.

It is a study basically of the history of US foreign policy. Nothing very orginal or good either. Just some sweeping generalisations that would suggest that US foreign policy is purely a produce of the ideals of the current US president.