[.ca] A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918 (ISBN 0553382403)

Exciting history:
I read history as background for writing my novels, and have slogged through many a tome that might put me to sleep before finding a cogent point that I can use for what might be called 'intimate background material' for my own books. I'm not a historian, so cannot rate this wonderful book by an historian's point of reference. I have read no better history of the Great War than this. The publisher's description does it fair justice. Yet it omits one further point that I make. G.J. Meyer writes in a fluid, exciting style that reads easily, and literally drags you along. His background historical material, inserted in added chapters between the flow of the times, puts the reader firmly in the picture and clarifies the often baffling decisions of the leaders of the times. This is a history for the non-historian who simply wants to know. A wonderful surprise in the list of often dreary, dusty recapitulations of an oft-told tale.