Dreadnought
Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War
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4.4 • 49 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
A gripping chronicle of the personal and national rivalries that led to the twentieth century’s first great arms race, from Pulitzer Prize winner Robert K. Massie
With the biographer’s rare genius for expressing the essence of extraordinary lives, Massie brings to life a crowd of glittery figures: the single-minded Admiral von Tirpitz; the young, ambitious Winston Churchill; the ruthless, sycophantic Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow; Britain’s greatest twentieth-century foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey; and Jacky Fisher, the eccentric admiral who revolutionized the British navy and brought forth the first true battleship, the H.M.S. Dreadnought.
Their story, and the story of the era, filled with misunderstandings, missed opportunities, and events leading to unintended conclusions, unfolds like a Greek tragedy in this powerful narrative. Intimately human and dramatic, Dreadnought is history at its most riveting.
Praise for Dreadnought
“Dreadnought is history in the grand manner, as most people prefer it: how people shaped, or were shaped by, events.”—Time
“A classic [that] covers superbly a whole era . . . engrossing in its glittering gallery of characters.”—Chicago Sun-Times
“[Told] on a grand scale . . . Massie [is] a master of historical portraiture and anecdotage.”—The Wall Street Journal
“Brilliant on everything he writes about ships and the sea. It is Massie’s eye for detail that makes his nautical set pieces so marvelously evocative.”—Los Angeles Times
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Massie's sweeping narrative centers around the naval rivalry between Britain and Germany after the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, highlighting this as one of the major tensions that led to WW I. Photos. ( Nov. )
Customer Reviews
Great book, missing pages...
A comprehensive study that never bores the reader. Unfortunately, almost every last page of the chapter is missing and that is a lot of missing pages.
Not what I expected…
I was looking forward to and interesting treatise on battleships. While this book certainly covered warships, I was unprepared for its length and depth. As I became enthralled in its detail, I simultaneously regretted committing myself to such a long read. Upon completion of the book, I was so grateful that I persevered. Dreadnought is an in-depth look at the history of Europe from the end of the Georgian era until the dawn of the modern world. It is a needed concordance to help even serious historians to understand how the 20th Century - and perhaps in some ways the 21st, came to be. The real and colorful characters could have been from a novel, but (in some cases, sadly) they were very real. Block out some time and savor this masterpiece.
Grade: A
As a career Naval Officer I wish Mr. Massie had written all of my required Text Books. He has a gift for bringing history and otherwise dry technological details to life.