This book, although humbly titled "military atlas" provides all the necessary information on the first WW, from the motivations and politics, to weapon types, warfare tactics, railroad systems not only in Europe, but on all the periphal campaigns as well and by the way, you get the most comprehensive maps on the preluding balkan wars as well. The maps themselves are in black&white, but perfectly presented, with clear, sharp contrasts, so that it's very easy to read them even if you're without military background.
The book succeeds in being the ideal starting point for anyone being even remotely interested in WW1.
Every map is accompanied by a short summary of what's going on, most of the times even in the maps themselves which makes the information very easy to consummate.
The real value of the book lies in the fact that it presents the actions and campaigns and politics without judging them, without being biased in any sort of way, may it be the old good vs. bad stereotype or the modern pacifistic viewpoint: It just provides information and what you do with it is up to you.
Highly recommended.

This book is an essential companion for every First World War scholar or simply interested reader. The maps accurately illustrate the developing of operations on land and sea (including some on the submarine and mine warfare). The air war is very well illustrated as far as the zeppelin operations are concerned; I would have liked also a detailed account of bombers-fighters operations on the various fronts. Maps for the african, italian, palestinian, macedonian and mesopotamian fronts are included, together with those relating to the Western and Eastern theaters. I have found the tables on the various weapons very useful and complete. As an Italian reader I have to confess that I found the maps about the Italian front rather sketchy. Even with this little (and ultimately not much important) flaws, this is a great book, providing the reader with a definitive guide on the Great War fronts and warfare. Read it together with B. Liddel Hart's or J. Keegan's books on the conflict and you will have a reasonably complete understanding of WWI from the military point of view.

This is a good biography, nicely chronological. There may be more scholarly biogrphies of Metternich, but I thought this told very well what one wants to know about this pivotal figure of the earlier 19th century.

This book recounts the events, figures and wars that marked the 20th century. The information is classified according to alphabetized entries as in a dictionary, and the facts written are detailed and interesting. The book is not confined to only wars or events but it also contains info about important people, influential cultural and political movements, and even a general article about the historical standing of each country. This global quality of the book is enticing. What is also attractive is that the book is objective and not partisan. It gives the facts as they are without directing the reader to a certain belief. This is especially important when dealing with sensitive issues, such as the Middle East. The entries include: Berlin, Guevara, October War, Lebensraum, Kashmir Dispute, Poujadism, Warsaw Pact, Kellog Pact, Pearl Harbor, Churchill, Treaty of London, Constantinople Agreements, Arafat, Greek Colonels, Lebanon, Enosis, etc. The book is extensively cross-referenced and is thoroughly up-to-date with the recent developments around the world. Penguin's Dictionary of 20th Century History is an impressive reference book that should be found on everyone's bookshelf.

An excellent review of Bismarck's life. It does tend to glorify him though, for balance I suggest Crankshaw's Bismarck.

Alan Palmer has written a very readable biography of Otto von Bismarck. He starts with Bismarck's family history and his parents. He covers Bismarck's early life, education, personal life and religious beliefs. Palmer also includes quotes from Bismarck and parts of his letters to show his thoughts. Palmers wrote this book to study how Bismarck's labyrinthine mind worked, and this book succeeds nicely and clearly.

This book works both on a scholarly level by describing and explaining Bismarck's politics and diplomacy, and on a layman's level by showing Bismarck's relations with his friends and family. Palmer alternates the high points and low points in Bismarck's political career, like the Schleswig Holstein crisis, the Luxemburg situation and the Drei Kaiser Bund with details of Bismarck's health. Palmer displays Bismarck's plans, both those that work and those that didn't in both politics and diplomacy.

Palmer concludes his book by shrewdly observing that Bismarck's " mastery of detail and skill at seizing and making opportunities enabled him, within nine years, to create a greater Prussia and call it Germany. Thereafter, his ability to maintain an intricate system of alliances and alignments imposed the balanced peace which the classical diplomats had sought in vain. Within Germany Bismarck failed in one important respect: he never attempted to build up a secure form of government in the Reich".

Palmer has included several maps, a collection of photographs, and an excellent

For Americans who know London's East End only from Bob Hoskins' movies (e.g., "Mona Lisa") and the BBC (e.g., the "EastEnders" soap opera), Alan Palmer's "The East End: Four Centuries of London Life" interjects needed reality and perspective by surveying the East End since the 1600s.

Now, I would have appreciated more on the first two of those four centuries -- Palmer rushes so fast to the 1800s that his subtitle should be "Two Centuries of London Life." Still, he locates the essence of the East End in its people and public meeting places when much of the private property was on church land. Absentee ownership prevented long-term leases, encouraged short-term hangouts, and deterred investments that could've renovated the area. But through the centuries, Palmer makes plain, the one constant in the East End has been the creative tension produced by generation after generation emigrating from around the world. Thus it's long been more akin to New York City than to the quiet villages or university towns of English novels and their Masterpiece Theater dramatizations.

Palmer is a good writer, with a style at once spirited and blunt -- the two character traits of the archetypal East Ender. I especially appreciate Palmer's treatment of the 1990s, a decade during which the East End's blue-collar pubs and poverty were contrasted by glassy new Thameside skyscrapers and white-collared wine bars.

This book was brought to my attention when Amazon.com listed it under the name of Peter Ackroyd, who wrote its literate introduction. As complements to Palmer's history, Ackroyd's biographies and novels are surely the greatest contemporary writings on the story of London: on East End themes for the 17th century, read Ackroyd's "Hawksmoor"; for the 19th century, "The Trial of Elizabeth Cree" (American title for the British "Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem"). For the 21st century, read either of these Ackroyd novels, as he typically creates fictions where present-day London fuses with historical London. In this manner, we find agreement with "The East End" because Alan Palmer, too, describes the timelessness by which four centuries' worth of East Enders join in a communal effort to create what Palmer makes feels like the soul of London.

As one can tell from the publisher?s descriptions and Booknews comments (above) this compilation of biographical sketches includes quite a broad range of ?characters? from Shakespeare?s England. It is a handy reference, especially to the newcomer to this period, to obtain *a little* more depth of knowledge into lives one may hear referenced while reading, say, Shakespeare studies. The best-targeted audience is the general lay public or undergraduates. English majors will soon become disappointed how the sketches selectively scratch the surface: the authors (editors, nearly) collect information from secondary/ tertiary sources, and sometimes round out entries with such information as who married whom how soon after their spouse?s death (i.e., occasionally higher on intrigue than substance). A dictionary of 700 entries obviously cannot explore the controversies of a life, but the Palmers at least strive to alert us to prominent issues therein.

Admirably, the secondary sources on which they draw are responsibly acknowledged at the end of each entry and favor highly appropriate selections such as E. K. Chambers, Eccles, Schoenbaum, McKerrow, and the Dictionary of National Biography. Some changes are said to have been made since the original (1981) edition, but for a book only striving for such global summaries of each life can probably safely be bought in the earlier edition if you wish to save by selecting a used copy.

This book was a good help for researching the history of VIPs in US and European history. However sometimes not all the information which is provided is absolutly correct within the hole Who's Who series. But it is certainly a good starting point and I would definitly recommend it.

As someone who enjoys casual history reading, specifically about WWI and WWII, I found this book a complete waste of time. This is the first book of this type that I honestly could not force myself to read after the first 100 pages. Paragraphs seem to run on for pages with no main topic, let alone coherency. There is no feeling for chronology at all, just continuous rambling with names and places inserted into the narrative that come from nowhere! Keegan's book, although it started awfully slow and over-detailed, was much more enjoyable and informative. After reading Churchill's excellent WWII series, I'll have to get his book on the "Great War" rather than spending any more time on Palmer's drivel.

In Victory 1918, Alan Palmer attempts a 300 page synthesis of the Great War. Although he provides some interesting insights and, as in his other books, is particularly adept at introducing large points through small, anecdotal-type vignettes, he fails in his effort.

Palmer virtually ignores the great struggles on the Western and Eastern fronts; Verdun and the Somme are barely mentioned; Tannenberg is not even noted. Instead, Palmer highlights the collateral campaigns, the "sideshows," in Mesopotamia, Palestine, Salonika and northern Italy. Those campaigns are certainly worthy of consideration and they are often glossed over in standard one volume syntheses of the War. But no military history of the War -- and Palmer's book is, at bottom, a military history -- can be regarded as adequate which ignores the main campaigns. The title of this work is also misleading, suggesting that Palmer is intent on analyzing only the last year of the War, leading up to the armistices. But Palmer's topic is really the entire War and he does not limit himself to the last year.

Palmer certainly has an engaging style and although he skips about both geographically and chronologically, Palmer still manages to keep the narrative together through skilfull transitions. Still, for those interested in a solid one volume study of the Great War, this book cannot be recommended. Such readers would be better served by Martin Gilbert and B.H. Liddell Hart. Both have written longer and more complete works. For those interested in the particular campaigns Palmer emphasizes, there are good book-length studies available. Some are described in Palmer's rather sketchy bibliography.

Palmer's treatment of the Great War is unique military history. I have read my share of books on the subject, and I was pleased to find one without the (direct) emphasis on the Western Front. This book looked at all theaters and the effects (or lack thereof) on the Allied war effort in general;it is important to remember that the entire war did not oocur in France and Russia. Kudos to Palmer for a readable antithesis to the common Great War study.

Reading this history, I had hoped to gain a broader insight into the character of Marie Louise. But the author only reinforced my first impressions of her as a shallow, frivolous woman whose only claim to fame was her marriage to Napoleon.
Palmer wastes the first third of the book in rehashing the political situation in Europe and detailing Napoleon's rise to power. These things could have been skimmed over with more focus on the imperial marriage as the title suggests. I have read numerous histories on Napoleon and Palmer leaves out details about this second marriage that would have been interesting to the uninformed reader.
Her depth of love for Napoleon during their marriage was a pleasant surprise but only reemphasized the shame of her desertion when he fell from glory.
Louise was influenced by the men around her and seldom acted on her own initiative. Palmer excuses her indiscretions with the fact of her youth. There have been younger women in history who demonstrated far more courage and intelligence in times of crises. Louise did what the men close to her wanted her to do. Her father insisted she never see Napoleon again after his defeat and she placidly obeyed. As Duchess of Parma she was happy to leave governing to her lover. She found such things 'tedious'.
It's impossible to feel sympathy for this young woman who, Palmer emphasizes, made a political sacrifice in 1810 by marrying Napoleon, a man who elevated her to Empress, indulged and loved her, and gave her a status she didn't deserve.
Only interested in musical evenings and surrounding herself with attentive men, Marie Louse remained superficial to the end.

As I had feared, its a bit dry. I wish that these historians who decide towrite a biography of a female political consort wouldnt rant on about how the woman and her great qualities were "Ignored By History" and then spend most of the book doing an in-depth analysis of the subjects husband, father, brothers and male friends with little mention of their subject, except a few token passage about what she was wearing at some important historical moment. It really is a most insulting irony. I mean, the main market out there is educated affluent women, buying these biographies because they want to read about the role of their gender in History, and hopefully relate to an historical tradition of female strength. The dust jacket will have solitary portraits of the woman herself, littered with phrases like: "finally X is restored to her former stature!" Then you buy the sodding book and its a roll call of every man who passed through a woman's life and what impressions they recorded.

I did NOT buy this book to read exclusively about Napoleon and Leopold of Austria. I took Western Civ for that years ago. I bought this book to read about a French Empress that my Western Civ text devoted a mere two lines to, only to discover that Palmer had done very little more than that, preferring to witter on about the complexity of Napoleons character and the military significance of the towns where Marie-Louise incidentally bought a frock.

The worst part about it is that Palmer is a very good historian, with an eye to detail. Its frustrating to realize that if he had really been interested in writing a book about Napoleons second wife, he could have done an excellent job. It is both well written and informative.

I have to agree with the earlier two reviews that this book isn't really about Marie-Louise. It rather focuses on the personalities and events surrounding Austrian dealings with Napoleonic France. Napoleon of course comes out as the dominant personality of the age. However, Count Metternich and Emperor Francis I are also brilliantly sketched in, the latter especially in his dealings with his daughter. Surprisingly, I found this coverage to be the main strength of the book as the writer clearly has an excellent grasp of the flow of events and writes with a clear narrative style.
Thankfully, the writer minimises the overly sentimental quotes from Marie-Louise's diaries and also the unnecessary gossips about her amorous affairs.
Marie-Louise is really a walk-on character, to pivot the story and to give the book an interesting title. She could not have been better presented.

The book covers Ottoman Empire from 1650 to demise and founding of Modern Turkey. Included in the story the wars, internal problems, European politics against the empire, internal uprising, modernization efforts and all.There is nothing about scientific or cultural sides of the empire.Although mentiones but there is no extention into Modern Turkey.
There are some interesting stories that makes dry historical information a little juicy.
As I was reading the preface I was astonished author's reasoning using the name "Constantinople" in lieu of current name "Istanbul" for he claims that Istanbul is not in common usage in English, give me a break. Yes Ottomans did not use the name Istanbul for they were not a nation Empire and they did not change the name when they took the city Istanbul but since the introduction of concept "nationalism" into Ottoman Empire by foreign countries within last 150 years, the name was changed to Istanbul like it or not. From the introduction I could feel the bias author had that would effect the writing and that should not be in a scientific book.

Okay, I guess.

The book is horribly boring and a bit to pretentious. The book shines in the end (from the rule of the Triumveriate to the epilog), but until then it is plodding. After getting one-third of the way through, I put of finishing this book for 8 months and have no regrets.

If you like this peroid, there are two better books to read. The first is A HISTORY OF THE BALKAN PENNENSULA by Ferdinand Schevill, which in its 533 pages gives a better understanding of everyone (Bulgars, Vlachs, Byzantines, and Turks) in the area. The other is THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN TURKEY by Bernard Lewis. The latter is memorable if nothing more than its summary of Kemal Ataturk's "This is a hat" speech.

I was interested in how the Ottoman Empire played into the Great War and of what significance the Ottoman Empire played in the " big picture" of the Great War. Alan Palmer did an excelent job of discussing only the end of the Ottoman Empire and answering all of my questions. Be forewarned about this book, I had to have a dictionary handy to get through each chapter. This book is not for someone that does not want to be challenged with new words. Unlike another review of this book, I found that the more I read and understood how Turkey fit into the European puzzle, I became more interested. True, my interest is very focused, however, this book provide the information I was looking for.