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The First World War, a cataclysm that left ten million dead, created the modern world. It was a struggle of unprecedented ferocity that ended the rational, liberal culture that had prevailed in Europe since the Enlightenment, swept away the great European empires, and unleashed the demons- mechanized warfare, mass death, totalitarian politics- that have made the twentieth century the bloodiest in history. In this magisterial narrative, the great military historian John Keegan has produced the definitive account of the Great War. He sheds fascinating light on weaponry and technology; shows us the doomed negotiations between the monarchs and the ministers of 1914; takes us into the verminous trenches of the Western front, to the council-rooms of Haig, Hindenburg, and Joffre, and to key conflagrations from Gallipoli to East Africa to the Carpathians. This epic account of the conflict that still profoundly informs the politics and culture of the world today is destined to take its place among the classics of world history.
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