Play Audiobook Sample
The Guns of August Audiobook
Play Audiobook Sample
(4.00) - 22,862 listener ratings
Quick Stats About this Audiobook
Total Audiobook Chapters:
Longest Chapter Length:
Shortest Chapter Length:
Average Chapter Length:
Audiobooks by this Author:
Publisher Description
In this Pulitzer Prize–winning classic, historian Barbara Tuchman brings to life the people and events that led up to World War I.
This was the last gasp of the Gilded Age, of kings and kaisers and czars, of pointed or plumed hats, colored uniforms, and all the pomp and romance that went along with war. How quickly it all changed—and how horrible it became.
Tuchman masterfully portrays this transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, focusing on the turning point in the year 1914, the month leading up to the war, and the first month of the war. With fine attention to detail, she reveals how and why the war started and why it could have been stopped but wasn't, managing to make the story utterly suspenseful even when we already know the outcome.
A classic historical survey of a time and a people we all need to know more about, The Guns of August will not be forgotten.
Download and start listening now!
"There is so much in this book...there is always so much in any book about military history--names of officers, names of soldiers, names of battles, names of places, etc.--that a re-reading is almost necessary if one is to remember anything other than the basic facts presented in the book. Military histories are, to me, always a bittersweet experience: whatever fascinating facts, speculations or even gossip are included, there is always the underlying idea that people, in this case numbering in the millions, were dying as the story unfolded. They are as anonymous in death as they were in life. "Their position was overrun", "the battalion was routed", and "victory was complete" are basically code words for the basic idea that many people died, away from their home and their loved ones and to be buried, if at all, in an unmarked grave. Napoleon single-handedly managed to decimate the French male population during the first fifteen years of the nineteenth century through his continuous years of war, over 1.5 million young French men never returning home. What makes this book even more depressing than most of its type is that we know that what happens in August of 1914 is nothing more than a murderous prelude to an even more murderous four years of what has been called "competitive homicide". And yet, in the same way that we find it difficult to drive by an automobile accident without slowing down to see what happened, so, too, do we read about these terrible wars and the horrific tolls they exacted on both those who died and those who did not. Tuchman, as has been noted by hordes of readers and reviewers much more insightful than me, manages to bring to light enough human foibles among the leaders and humanity among the soldiers to make it not only readable but, dare I say, enjoyable. She even does the impossible...presenting in a cogent manner the actual reasons, other than the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand, why the First World War came about and, indeed, makes it seem unavoidable to the nations involved as they roused themselves from, as someone noted, "the boredom of peace". It has been said that "...armies always prepare to fight the last war", meaning that they know what worked before and use that as the guide in preparing for the next war. Tuchman shows us that some of the French and Russian generals seemed to be preparing to fight the war before the last war, still relying on cavalries to somehow survive machine-gun fire and bayonets to overcome artillery bombardment. The only heroes in this story seem to be the Belgians, and especially Albert, their king, and the Russian soldiers who were expected to die in great numbers and duly obliged. (And even the Belgians come out brave but very naive, refusing to compromise their neutrality by asking for assistance until it has become overrun by the Germans.) Tuchman does one other thing: she does away with the idea that the populations of the nations involved were unwillingly lead by the nose into war by their leaders. As she says about workers on the street, they may have considered themselves socialists, but when war was declared, their allegiance switched "from Marx to Mars", the god of war. "It is a joy to be alive!" screamed a headline in one Berlin newspaper as Germany declared war on France. Of course, this is because they all thought the war would be short--the Kaiser promised his troops in August that they would be back home "before the leaves fall"--and they all thought their side would win. This naivete was only matched by those who thought the nations of Europe had their economies so enmeshed with each other that a war was impossible. The only thing more depressing for the reader than the litany of mistakes, misinformation and treachery is the idea that when the book is ended, the war has only begun. As dreadful as the tale already told has been, what is to follow will be immeasurably worse. ."
— Dennis (5 out of 5 stars)
Quotes
-
“Tuchman’s masterpiece of historical reconstruction has been given a narrator who comprehends in full its enormous narrative power…While Tuchman’s large cast of armies and their generals is challenging, [McCaddon] lessens this difficulty with her mimicry of national accents, as well as her pacing and variations in tone. [An] unforgettable listening experience…Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
— AudioFile -
“Brilliant…Her narrative grips the mind.”
— New Yorker -
“Fascinating…One of the finest works of history written…A splendid and glittering performance.”
— New York Times -
“An epic never flagging in suspense.”
— Christian Science Monitor -
“I have been unable to put this book down…Barbara W. Tuchman writes brilliantly and inspiringly...The Guns of August is lucid, fair, critical, and witty.”
— New York Times Book Review -
“In provoking musing thoughts, Tuchman has no contemporary equal. Her book, thus, has a vitality that transcends its narrative virtues, which are considerable, and its feel for characterizations, which is excellent.”
— Wall Street Journal -
“More dramatic than fiction...Magnificent…Beautifully organized, elegantly phrased, skillfully paced...The product of painstaking and sophisticated research.”
— Chicago Tribune -
“Narrator [Wanda McCaddon] sounds exactly as listeners would expect historian Barbara Tuchman to sound: educated, knowledgeable and fascinated with her subject —like the best kind of history professor—and her British accent lends more authority.”
— SoundCommentary.com
Awards
-
Winner of the 1963 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction
-
Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award
-
The 2009 AudioFile Best Voice for History: Wanda McCaddon
The Guns of August Listener Reviews
-
—
Mark Kovalevsky, 9/13/2024
-
—
sojan parappilly, 2/10/2024
-
—
Dennis Haire, 6/3/2022
-
" A huge cast of characters and a setting that extends across all of northern France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and parts of Russia/Prussia/Poland. Tuchman seems to be in the rooms where plans were made by the high commands of France, Germany, England, Russia, and Belgium, all at once. If you can keep all the names straight, it's possible to envision the entire horrible scene of World War I unfolding. Yet, it's still difficult to comprehend why. France's cause seems clear--territory had been taken from it by Germany, and it wanted it back; in addition, Germany was clearly plotting against France. Germany's grievance against France is much less comprehensible. Even though all of Germany, including well-known German philosophers and intellectuals, supported the war effort, yet it is impossible to see German aggression as anything other than a result of the vanity of generals. "
— Alan, 2/14/2014 -
" This book explains how World War I started. I learned a lot. I had no idea that so much of the royalty at the time was related. Essentially, cousins were fighting cousins. Pretty stupid, but then, most wars are. "
— Wachlin007, 2/13/2014 -
" I have a fondness for military history, and in particular, I find World War I an intensely interesting subject. When I found this in the bookstore, I was immediately taken in because I had studied the outbreak of the war in my history studies but never in so much detail. Tuchman does a marvelous job at cutting through all of the havoc of those opening months of conflict and illuminates the key players on both sides, their agendas and decisions, brilliance and incompetence, and what was at stake in this pivotal period of history. To any history lover, this is a well-written and extremely fascinating look into a short window of time that had an enormous effect on the war itself as well as the world. "
— Kyle, 2/13/2014 -
" I majored in history, I've read a LOT of history, and no one writes it like Barbara Tuchman. I am a raving Barbara Tuchman fan. That is all. "
— Lorena, 2/9/2014 -
" This book explains how World War I started. I learned a lot. I had no idea that so much of the royalty at the time was related. Essentially, cousins were fighting cousins. Pretty stupid, but then, most wars are. "
— Wachlin007, 2/9/2014 -
" Only made it 60% through! After reading A World Undone (which I preferred) the middle got boring, but The Guns of August was a great second description of the background, causes, and beginning of the war, especially since it emphasizes different stories. "
— Matty2fatty, 2/3/2014 -
" Yeah, it's that good. All the awesomeness you've heard about it is true. "
— Ian, 1/31/2014 -
" I don't need to rehash the story, but I will say that this book is so excellently written as it covers the first 30 days of WWI, the events that led up to it, and the consequences from it. It is written with such fascinating detail, punctuated with great humor, about the follies and foibles of each country's leaders. I was reminded throughout of the wonderful line from Elaine on TV's Seinfeld, "War...what is it good for?". "
— carl, 1/30/2014
About Barbara W. Tuchman
Barbara W. Tuchman (1912–1989) was a self-trained historian and author who achieved prominence with The Zimmerman Telegram and international fame with The Guns of August, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1963. She received her BA degree from Radcliffe College in 1933 and worked as a research assistant at the Institute of Pacific Relations in New York and Tokyo from 1934 to 1935. She then began working as a journalist and contributed to publications including The Nation, for which she covered the Spanish Civil War as a foreign correspondent in 1937. Her other books, include The Proud Tower, A Distant Mirror, Practicing History, The March of Folly, The First Salute, and Stilwell and the American Experience in China: 1911-45, also awarded the Pulitzer Prize. In 1980 the National Endowment for the Humanities selected her to deliver the Jefferson Lecture, the US government’s highest honor for intellectual achievement in the humanities.
About Wanda McCaddon
Wanda McCaddon (d. 2023) narrated well over six hundred titles for major audiobook publishers, sometimes with the pseudonym Nadia May or Donada Peters. She earned the prestigious Audio Award for best narration and numerous Earphones Awards. She was named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine.