John Keegan has presented a standard work on the First World War for our generation. It illustrates not only the military events but also the developments in technology and science, in art, in economics, and in sociology that this war has fostered, at a cost that can never be quantified. Vividly, in detail, and with deep empathy, Keegan describes the course of the war on all fronts. For the author, great politics is best reflected in the trenches. As in his other groundbreaking works on military history, he establishes the connection between the individual and the general, between yesterday and today, between the culture and barbarism of war.