I got this book not knowing much about the First World War but wanting to learn more. This book does a great job explaining the background behind key people and events leading up to the war. As well as more in depth sections about the main battles and events of each year. I thought it was very well written and organized and I would definately recommend it. My only minor complaint is the lack of maps. There are a few scattered thoughout but I would have found the battles and troop movements easier to follow with more maps.

I just completed reading G.J. Meyer's book "A World Undone: The Great War 1914-1918". And I highly recommend it to anyone who would like a better understanding of World War I. It is a well written and concise but detailed narrative history of the war. The book does an excellent job of pulling together all the fronts and the political wrangling that lead to the blood spilled. Between the chapters dealing with the major battles, there are short chapters dedicated to the main characters of the war that fill you in on their background to help you better understand their decisions and the creeping madness that eventually afflicted all of them.

In a sense, the world was at war much longer than just the 4 years between 1914 and 1918. The start of World War I was the result of European conflicts deeply rooted in the areas in which the war was fought. The Balkan Wars of 1912, the Hapsburg Empire's annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908 and the Franco-Prussian wars of the 19th century all played a part in bringing about the First World War.

The people of Europe cheered as the war began. This was the time to right old wrongs, to regain territories and honor taken away through previous conflicts. No one expected the war to last very long. No one thought the slaughter would be on a scale unheard of in all of history. Every European believed that victory was imperative and were told by government propaganda machines the enemy wanted nothing less than the total destruction of their homeland and that to try for peace was to commit national suicide. As their men marched off to war excitement was high and victory expected in every country.

As for the war itself, it was madness. Millions of men, standing in fetid conditions taking the pounding punishment of artillery barrages and sniper fire day after day for four years is an unimaginable hell. We get squeamish at the thought of a few thousand killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. The soldiers of World War I faced HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS killed during every new offensive of the war. Wave after wave of men were hurled at positions so strongly defended as to be impregnable. The results were (of course) always catastrophic.

In the end, there were 9.8 million military deaths and the seeds of the next "great war" were sown as Germany surrendered without a single enemy having set foot on home soil.

Worldwide there are only 3 confirmed Veteran's of World War I left alive. Three more soldiers to go and then this war will have passed irretrievably into history's fog like all other wars before it.

I would recommend reading this book to anyone who is looking to get a grasp on this war. 5 Stars.

What I like about this book are the sections between each chapter that give more background on a specific person, event or situation that is relevant to what you just read in the previous chapter or are about to read in the next. It helps the reader understand more of the background behind many of the events during WWI. The book does a good job of covering the "less" popular fronts, especially the actions involving the armies of Austria-Hungarian empire.

The details are deep enough to give the reader a good understanding without getting lost. Overall, I enjoyed reading this book. It is one of the better "global" overview books on WWI I have read. The insight into the politically focused activities in the various capitals of the primary players in the conflict was an unexpected element of the book. In particular, the back room dealings of the diplomats and government agents in the weeks leading up to August 1st, 1914 are uniquely brought to life in this book.

A World Undone will give you the basics on the WWI period with a highly readable and extremely enjoyable narrative. Meyer's success is that he lays out a lot of the pieces and shows you how they are connected with such ease and style. The text is either a great departure point for additional study or a stand alone experience if you need to have a comprehensive but general foundation of this great historical moment. So much of what the rest of the XXth century (and beyond) was about was wrought in the Great War - e.g. Ludendorff cleared Lenin to travel back to Russia in the hopes of a Communist consolidation of power and the eventual disruption of the Russian will to continue fighting.
WWI was a shattering of Western Civilization's concept of itself. Meyer covers in brief but informed fashion everything from politics to technology to the devastating points of breakdown in a Victorian world thrust into an age of advanced mechanization and a science of war which often outstripped human imagination.
You can't go wrong with this text.

The book is perfectly written, fast paced and intriguing, The author takes into account that most of today's readers have little deep historical background of that period. The book interlaces every chapter with a "background" chapter. The book contains a wealth of information. I think that it's reading is essential to understand how world wars can happen, and how it set the stage for the wholesale slaughter and strange political alignments in the greatest calamity in recorded history...WW2. If you think about the subject more deeply, you can already see many possible worst case scenarios that could easily lead to WW3.

I have always been interested in the history of WW2 as a way to understand the world as it is today but eventually came to the conclusion that I had to go back in time in order to better appreciate the causes of WW2 and this meant to learn more about WW1.

Sadly, WW1 is not as fancy as WW2 as it is almost a century old but "A World Undone" makes a great job in explaining the social and political situation of the world at that time. Combine this with a wonderful narrative style and you have a superb book on the subject.

Get yourself this book and you will enjoy it as much as a very well written novel.

One of the best history books I've read.Meyer wrote this book in a clear,concise flowing manner in which one never tires of the subject matter.I appreciated the alternating styles of chapters in which a chapter of chronological narrative of the war was followed by a short background chapter focusing on a single subject,very interesting.
Highly recommended

The Great War, World War I, like it's offspring, World War II, was a complex and far-reaching conflict that defies easy analysis within the confines of a single book. But in "A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918", author G. J. Meyer has put forth an admirable effort that not only covers the major battles but gives the reader a sense of what was motivating the different combatants and how events cascaded onto each other and led to one of the most destructive wars in history.

The book is large (the paperback version clocks in at over 800 pages), but because of the sheer scope of World War I, the military portion of the narrative focuses primarily on land campaigns in the major theaters. (The war in the air and land battles in peripheral theaters receive little mention, and the war at sea is pretty much limited to the German submarine campaign and the Battle of Jutland). I do not view this intentional limitation as a flaw, given the huge amount of material the author had to cover ... something had to give, and Mr. Meyers correctly focused on those things that were decisive in the war.

Although I would not consider this to be an introductory book, per se, it provides a broad overview of the war and the many factors that led to it being fought the way it was. Mr. Myers does not break any new analytical ground, in my opinion, but he is able to explain what happened and why, while providing interesting bits of background information, and does so better than most other books on World War I. The author wrote for the newspapers and it shows favorably here with his crisp, clear, concise writing style.

I recommend this book for both someone not well versed in World War I and wants to better understand the "who's, what's, where's and why's", and for those more serious readers looking for a book that discusses the many factors that influenced the war and shows how they related to each other and the war as a whole.

All I remembered about WWI from school was that it started with the assassination of some Archduke in Sarajevo and ended with Germany's defeat. This book does a wonderful job of describing the history of the various nations/empires involved and the events leading up to WWI. Meyer provides insight into the major players of the war, and what drove those individuals. Meyer covers so much ground in 600 pages, and yet, the reader realizes that so many different battles and events over the course of the four-year Great War could be the subject of a separate book (the Dardenelles, Gallipoli, the brief naval battle between the Royal Navy and the High Seas Fleet, the U-boat campaign, Lawrence of Arabia, Salonika, the crumbling of the Romanov dynasty in Russia, etc...) I was inspired to google "best World War I movies" and found a number of lists, most containing the same movies (A Farewell to Arms, Gallipoli, All Quiet on the Western Front, etc..) I'm going to rent and watch them now with a much better understanding of the historical context.

Meyer's book illustrates shockingly the massive losses in human life and property as the warring nations pounded the same piece of Earth with artillery over and over and over again, managing only the move the Front a few hundred yards or a few miles in either direction. The casualties were simply appalling. How this stagnant and costly model of trench warfare could go on for so long is unbelievable. Meyer's book also made me realize that the war was fought not just on one front, not even on just the "eastern" and "western" fronts, but all over the place. It's remarkable that the Central Powers, particularly the Germans, did as well as they did for as long as they did stretched out on all those fronts.

If you want to read one really good overview of WWI, this is a great place to start.

Marvelous book in its original format, brilliantly written, but the pricey Kindle version excludes the endpaper maps from the print version, which were complete maps of the Western and Eastern fronts. Without these maps, the reader will need an atlas and great patience to figure out what is happening. Moreover, other maps in the Kindle version are ugly low-res versions that wash out quickly when zoomed, meaning most place names are unintelligible, as they are too small at max res and lose resolution when zoomed.

Amazon sometimes shows a marked indifference to the needs of Kindle history fans by offering old editions from new edition product links (see Middlekauf's "Glorious Cause") or as in this case by stiffing us on maps. If the Kindle version was $5, this might be a good trade off, but for 13 clams, I expect more.

Also, if Amazon absolutely must offer downgraded digital content, the product page should be CLEARLY labeled, so the buyer can make an informed choice. Getting a Kindle refund is difficult and convoluted, and it would be better not to have to go through the process in the first place because of a misleading product description.

Having mostly read WWII history books, I purchased this book in the interest of finding out more about a war that was always glossed over in history courses and I otherwise knew little about. It turned out to be very accessible, and to my surprise, quite a page turner. Heightened tensions that unstoppably resulted in the outbreak of war, the futility of most commanders' tactics in stalemate, the anticlimactic end which set the stage for World War II and the state of the modern world - all is portrayed neither too in-depth nor too briefly, and I find myself much more knowledgeable about all aspects of WWI than I was previously.

First book I read on WW1. I only knew about the first World War from school, TV, and some internet reviews. However, I do read as much history as I can but never got into WWI until I heard of this book. This was one of the most interesting realistic books I have ever read! You get the feeling that you are seeing the battles go on as he unveils them page by page. Seems like he gives a history buff on each situation and empire as you go along which gives the reader a understanding of why certain leaders acted or reacted the way they did through out the 4 plus years of devastating wars. I thought Vietnam or the civil war were the wars I would have avoided if I had to choose, but The Great War is by far the most intensive, exhausting, brutally savage war as far as close combat I have studied. I feel the Americans should never have gotten involved period. According to our constitution we should always stay our of foreign affairs!
One more point is that the author seems to make the Jews out to be helpful servants trying through every means to buff Germany's war machine... but according to Jewish accounts and other sources, the Jews were both in support because of beating back Russia and against. They did play a huge role in starting war protest along with munition strikes that put the army arsenal in short supply. Then there are the countless numbers of Jewish politicians and progressive bankers that influenced American entry into the war, such as Edward House who helped with the 14 points of the peace treaty and he was Wilson's adviser through out his term. Edward House is also the founder of the Council on Foreign Relations or CFR. Both sides of the war had strong rapacious corporatist betting on both sides. If you study history you see the banker/Zionist connection on every angle of every war in the past 150 years! Unless you are blind or you are to ignorant to see it? It is there that is the truth!

"The complete screw ups by men, nations, politicians."

This would be my title for this book. The shear pain of seeing how it all started, the dirty deals, driven by past bitterness, greed and lack of responsibility for their actions, is what this book is about. The results? How about the complete slaughter of men, animals, towns and civilians to start. If our current battles had produced these kinds of losses on a daily basis, hundreds of thousands, I think the populations would riot.

-Good points?
Id like to believe the author is as accurate as possible; keeping track of memorials, cemeteries and survivors documents is a tough task. He focus's on the land battles and the complete ignorance and pride of some of the military leaderships portrayed, where decisions to move forward were not made with any grasp of costs. Somehow, I feel the same idiots are walking amongst us today, fortunately they are in charge of Garrison's, and not in the scope of battle planning or operations.

-Bad point?
The author only touches on one of the most significant naval engagement in history, between mammoth battle-wagons, with a mere 5 or 6 lines of activity regarding the battle of Jutland. How rude and unfair.

Would I recommend it?
Sure............where else can you read about the complete slaughter of men in battle, by the tens of thousands at a time.

Clear without being simplistic, concise (even at over 700 pages) yet comprehensive, A World Undone is a near-masterpiece. After reading it, I feel comfortable saying that I'm now, while not by any means an expert on the Great War, still quite well-versed in its causes, major figures, strategies, tactics, progress, and resolution.

My only beeves are these: First, the author indulges far too much in the passive voice (albeit less so toward the beginning of the book). Second, I would've liked to see at least a couple more maps, and for the maps to correspond a bit more closely to the text. (On a few occasions, the author will mention a place that's not marked on the relevant map.)

Third, the author doesn't even lightly touch on what happened to the millions of prisoners each side took. A "Background" interchapter on the subject would've been very helpful. Fourth, while the author justifiably extols Australian, New Zealander, and Canadian units, he says next to nothing about Indian or African ones, and doesn't say a word about African-American troops. This, despite discussing not only Germany's Jewish soldiery, but as well, Japan's demanding a racial "Equality Clause" for the League of Nations, and the pro-democratic rhetoric of Woodrow Wilson (which, I should say, was the height of hypocrisy considering that Wilson was a vicious racist and unabashed repressor of black America). Again, a "Background" chapter on nonwhite combatants would have been enlightening--probably more so than the interchapter on Great War poetry.

[UPDATE (7/27/2009): Robert B. Edgerton's Hidden Heroism: Black Soldiers in America's Wars provides a fine introduction to the contributions (and trials) of black American troops during World War I. Edgerton also discusses the African theater of the Great War, something G.J. Meyer inexplicably fails to even mention.]

Fifth, I would've liked to see many more endnotes, although I was able to verify all of the author's unsourced statements that I bothered to check out. Sixth, the author deploys the words "irony" and "ironic" overaggressively, at times even inappropriately, especially toward the end of the book.

At any rate, A World Undone is a masterful and magnificent single-volume history of the Great War that pays off its author's elucubration in spades. It is well worth anyone's time and money who wants to get acquainted with the subject.

For me, a great historian is a great storyteller, and G. J. Meyer is a great storyteller. Though I've read Tuchman and Keegan, fine narrators themselves, I find Meyer the most engaging. Here's his plain-language précis of the origins of the World War I aka The Great War:

"Men with the power to decide the fate of Europe did the things that brought the war on and failed to do the things that might have kept the war from happening. They told lies, made mistakes, and missed opportunities. With very few if any exceptions they were decent, well-intended men, and almost always acted for what they thought were the best of reasons. But little of what they did produced the results they intended."

Historicism is the belief that history has a life of its own, that history is a tidal force, which sweeps people and events in its wake. The tides which swept through Europe, in the last half of the 19th and first two decades of the 20th centuries, completely overwhelmed the individuals who were trying to sail their ships of state through them. What had worked for them before no longer worked. Even the best and the brightest amongst them failed. Their epoch was gone, but they didn't know it. Even after the catastrophe they were totally oblivious. In the 1920s Earl Haig was still insisting on the indispensability of the "well-bred horse" on the battlefield.

The generals were swept away by the new technologies of warfare for which they had no new order of battle, and the politicians were sweeped away by socio-political forces they did not understand. Emperor Franz Joseph clung to his ancient and obsolete court protocols like fetishes, Kaiser Willhelm played toy soldier, Czar Nicholas hated his job and took his marching orders from his wife, who in turn took hers from a dissolute monk. England and France were ruled by cynics.

Meyer agrees with the consensus that the Great War broke out because men wittingly or unwittingly let events take over, so that after a certain tipping point there was no going back. What the tipping point was is an interesting debate. Meyer's tipping point is the conventional one, the assassination of the archduke of Austria, in Sararevo, Bosnia, on 28 June 1914. I should rather put the tipping point in 1908, when Austria-Hungary formally annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina. There had been an informal agreement between the Austrian and Russian foreign ministers, that if Russia acquiesced to the annexation, Austria would support Russia's expansion into the Dardanelles. The Russians lived up to their part, but Austrians reneged on theirs. Since none of the other powers would approve Russia's move, the Russians, having been played, were humiliated and furious. They were still seething, "Never again!" six years later. While Sarajevo was the spark, Russia was the tinder. It was Russia's mobilization against Austria, when the latter sought to break up Serbia after the archduke's assassination, and Germany's "blank check" of support for Austria, "which turned a regional conflict into a world war."

A World Undone has been recommended as a primer for those unfamiliar with The Great War. It certainly is that. But Meyers has a clear point of view, which readers with a background and their own point of view will enjoy debating. As said, Meyer is a great story teller. His prose reminds me of A.J.P. Taylor's classic The Struggle for Mastery in Europe: 1848-1918. Where Taylor was a revelation for an undergrad history major, Meyer is a fresh riff on a familiar subject for a history buff, and a nice thick juicy summer read.

A great and easy flowing book, from someone knowing very little about the Great War and even less about what caused or happened during the it. Meyer did a great job in allowing even a novice to easily follow the history the Great War, with background chapters on people and events to help get a better understanding. It also provided great insight into the what the commanders and politicians of the time were thinking and how they performed.

The major battles were also described brilliantly, giving the reader information on how they were prepared, how they were won and the loses from both sides. Meyer also explains some of the major blunders made during the war, leaving you with the question of 'what if?'.

At times I was forgetting/confusing who some people were, or what position/country they were from. But for such a large subject this was a very minor problem.

It was a very enjoyable read and left me wanting to discover more about this time in history. I would recommend it to anyone with even a slight interest in the subject and as a great starting point.

This is the most recent of several histories of WWI I've read over the years, and it is by far the best. It is much more comprehensive than any of the others, and a much more enjoyable read as well. I can recommend it without reservation.

Or course, books on World War One or the Great War are many, I own this one and the other two by John Keegan and Martin Gilbert. From my own view, this the best. The presentation are clear and easy to follow each events. I particularly like the background chapters before each crucial battle. Even if you have many books on World I but not this one, I would still recommend you to buy this one. You would still find something you have not encountered before.

If you had to choose one book to read about WWI to obtain an informative introduction this is it. It is informative, well written and at the same time accessible to those without a large background knowledge of WWI history. Somehow it manages to preserve the scope of the events and not to lose the big picture, as it is often the case with WWI history books.
WWI is comparatively unknown to modern audiences, while the average history buff will know the name of relatively second rank generals from WWII the very broad strokes of WWI are less familiar to most (personally I blame the History Channel for WWII mania). This is a great book to start a reading and familiarization with a war that greatly shaped the history of the world. I would recommend after this to read The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman for a more in depth view of the start of the war.
The Guns of August

World War I is one of many regrettable holes in my education and knowledge. As a step towards plugging at least that gap, I searched around for a good one-volume history of the Great War and, with some help from the Amazon site, settled on A WORLD UNDONE by G.J. Meyer. These sorts of efforts at self-education are not always successful, but this time I hit pay dirt. A WORLD UNDONE is not just good, it is excellent. Meyer is not a professional historian (I gather he started his career as a journalist), but A WORLD UNDONE nonetheless is exceedingly well done popular history -- and, from everything I can tell, responsible and objective history. It is superbly organized and very well-written. One of the well-designed organizational features is the use of brief interludes between most of the chapters which provide very helpful information on background subjects such as the Hapsburgs, the Hohenzollerns, the Romanovs, and the Junkers or on tangential subjects such as genocide (the Armenians by the Turks), Lawrence of Arabia, or "The War and Poetry." Contributing to the readability of the book is the absence of textual footnotes and contributing to its educational value are dozens of photographs and nine useful maps.

Other one-volume histories of WWI currently available are those by Hew Strachan, John Keegan, and Sir Martin Gilbert, all of whom are British and professional historians. Since I have not read any of them, it would not be proper for me to comment on them. I will say that I had my reasons for choosing THE WORLD UNDONE over any of them for my personal one-volume self-education course, and I now believe I made the correct choice. Moreover, I feel comfortable saying that for those (like me) looking for a readable, responsible one-volume account of WWI, THE WORLD UNDONE should not be dismissed from consideration simply because its author is an American and is not a professional historian.

I read a lot of history books and this is one of the best. It reads like a novel. Ever other chapter has background into people, events and the culture of the times.

If you want to understand World War I, how it started, how it ended, and everything in between, this is the book. All of the major players, mostly military leaders, but also political leaders, are presented in detail. They all had good and bad character traits that affected their decisions. They were all human and were faced with challenges that no one had ever faced before. Some fell back on the conventional wisdom they were taught, that was completely wrong for the situation. Some leaders understood that warfare had changed and tried to change strategies and tactics, but were often overridden by leaders who could not adapt to the changing reality of war.

The technological changes in this war overwhelmed the combatants who were unprepared for it. Even as the massive carnage continued, it was difficult for many to give up their beliefs about how to wage war.

The American Civil War contained lessons about modern warfare. Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg was a precursor to the Battle of the Somme. But the leaders of the great powers failed to learn the lessons.

The book also details the financial, social and cultural impact of the war. When I finished the book, I realized that no one won the war. All the powers where left with huge debt. Their prosperity was lost. At the start of the war, all the countries were monarchies except France. After the war, only Britain still had a king. Britain was the only major power whose infrastructure was left intact. No battles occurred on its shores. But all the nations had suffered a trauma that would stay with them. That another, greater war came along only twenty years later is not a surprise. The war ended with nothing resolved. But then, what was it supposed to have resolved? The war was not fought for any grand cause. Every one just fell into a situation that was too complicated to understand.

This is the best book on the Great War I have read.

I have looked for a good and intriguing and accurate portrayal of World War One to read and everything I have come across is dry. This is not dry and is very easy to read and is very thought provoking. I really like it; it makes you really question the ideas you have about World War One, and the best part about it - its fun and interesting to read!

I read the other reviews and thought of getting it from the library or buying a used one (cheap) but once I looked at it in the bookstore I was totally sold. It really is a fabulous collection of info with an irresistable story line leading through it. Tough to put down.

Go into the "Look Inside" feature if you can, to see the first page opening quote of Arch Duke Ferdinand. That's what sold me.

I generally read historical fiction or historical books. I have read a number of books on World War one and "The World Undone" is a very good one especially if you are looking for a book that has enough detail to satisfy an urge to learn about the topic without getting bogged down. The book is well written, easy to read and with very useful backgroud chapters on such things as the Hapsburgs, the Ottoman empire and so forth. These background chapters were well placed, provided context that was relevant and made the book that much more enjoyable. I would recommend the book to anyone interested in this topic or in history in general.

Having just finished Doris Kearns Goodwin's wonderful Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, I wouldn't have expected to be blown away by a history, but this one is really impressive! Meyer's sympathy for the characters, his humor, his concern for the needs of his reader and his uncanny ability to make a huge and complex story understandable makes this one of the best non-fiction books I've ever read.

His background sections and photos are interesting and informative, provide greater context or human detail, and a break from the descriptions of the horrendous battles. The brief final section, where he follows up on the lives of the main characters is outstanding. His use of first-hand accounts, anecdotes and memorable quotes kept me involved as in a novel. I read it on my Kindle, where his the maps are pretty much illegible, but his descriptions of are so clear that I didn't feel the loss, as I have in other Kindled texts (Two Years Before the Mast, for example). BTW: The quality of WWI photos is on a par with the ability of the Kindle to display them.

Meyer is that rare writer who appreciates the tactical and strategic issues in creating a narrative of this size and applies that knowledge admirably. After avoiding this subject for years, because of the confusing and piecemeal introduction that I had to this war, I feel that I have a general understanding of it and enough detailed information to pursue a deeper study of those characters, places and events that changed our world so profoundly.

Meyer's work is a good, eminently readable account of the Great War that is a relatively quick read. It avoids getting bogged down in the minutiae of military maneuvers. Unlike Barbara Tuchman's works, he focuses on a limited number of characters. You won't be searching Wikipedia for arcane names every-other-page.

Otherwise, Meyer's work doesn't offer much new to students of WWI. The villains are oft recognized from their appearances in previous accounts of the Great War. The Kaiser, Czar Nicholas II, Haig, Ludendorff, and Joffre make their obligatory appearances as either incompetents, or in the case of Ludendorff, a military genius but political failure. To Meyer, many of these personalities were well meaning, but overwhelmed by events and the enormity of modern warfare.

Where Meyer varies from common themes is seeming to place much of the blame for the immediate start of the war on the Austrians Conrad and Berchtold. Conrad broods for an opportunity to attack Serbia without appreciating enough the Russian threat. Berchtold supports Conrad for selfish, political reasons.

Meyer also apparently feels that peace "feelers" in the later years of the war were sincere and might have saved Germany from a Versailles style capitulation if Ludendorff hadn't so stubbornly clung to his no compromise position vis-a-vis Belgium and parts of occupied France.

For readers new to WWI, Meyer's work offers a well organized overview of events with logical explanations. "A World Undone" makes the complex history of 1914-1918 approachable.