Massie, Robert. Dreadnought, Britain, Germany and the Coming of the Great War

Vintage, 2007. Качество: изначально электронноеThis is a very good narrative of the relationship between Britain and Germany in the run up to the First World War, tracing events back a whole century to the post-Napoleonic War Congress of Vienna and the marriage of Victoria and Albert. The arms race of the construction of the titular dreadnoughts forms only a relatively small portion of the narrative. The concluding two chapters "Road to Armageddon" in Berlin and then in London detail extensively and sombrely the final negotiations, misunderstandings and bravado statements and actions of the final days and weeks leading up to the outbreak of the war.
Robert Massie is an excellent writer of narrative history. However, the book is flawed in that it is simply too long and there is too much repetition and coverage of the same ground in different parts of the book. The lengthy biographical portraits, covering the lives of all the main protagonists, are both a strength and a weakness: they are often fascinating and entertaining, but are often too lengthy and stray too far from the main thrust of the narrative for too long. Much of this detail might usefully have been included in an append