The First World War. Volume I: To Arms by Hew StrachanReview by: Eliot A. CohenForeign Affairs, Vol. 80, No. 5 (Sep. - Oct., 2001), p. 163Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20050279 .

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Recent Books

natural resources and lack of strategic

depth, it is a remarkable achievement.

The military has not yet been tested in

real combat, but few observers doubt its

professional ability. A fascinating study of what an intelligent, determined people can do to forge

an effective military in

unfavorable circumstances.

The First World War. Volume I: To Arms, by

hew strachan. New York: Oxford

University Press, 2001,1,227 PP- $45-??

Long the province of political scientists

probing the origins of catastrophic conflict,

the war of 1914-18 has recently attracted

historians who can reach a broader audi

ence. John Keegan's short one-volume

account, The First World War, is serviceable,

but this massive scholarly study will surely stand the test of generations. It supersedes the remarkable history by C.R.M.F

Cruttwell, which held the field for 70 years. Strachan, whose breadth of reading is nothing short of staggering, paints

a

masterly picture of politics, society, eco

nomics, and operations. There are no

cranky interpretations, no obsessions

with one form of historical narrative to

the exclusion of another?merely solid

prose and massive learning. This and

its succeeding volumes will provide the

foundation for future generations' under

standing of the war that inaugurated a dark

and bloody century.

Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke: War

Diaries, 1?39-1?45. edited byalex

DANCHEV AND DANIEL TODMAN.

Berkeley: University of California

Press, 2001, 815 pp. $40.00.

Alanbrooke, the British imperial chief of staff during World War II, permitted a popular historian to publish excerpts from

his wartime diaries in the 1950s. Those two

volumes?The Turn of the Tide and Tri

umph in the West?were shocking for the

time. Winston Churchill came in for some rough treatment, which outraged his

admirers. (Shortly after the diaries'

publication, Churchill turned his back on

Alanbrooke at a party.) But scholars have

long known that the unpublished manu

script of the entire diaries was rougher yet. Danchev and Todman have done a service

in rendering them into a full-sized book.

The extent of the material's novelty may be exaggerated;

one should not take

Alanbrooke's biliousness at face value.

He was a man under extraordinary pres

sures, and the diary was a way of relieving them. But as a window on World War II

and the nature of high command, this is

an unequalled book?even if one has less

sympathy for this dour soldier than do his admiring editors.

The Technological'Arsenal: Emerging Defense

Capabilities, edited by william c.

martel. Washington: Smithsonian

Institution Press, 2001,284 pp. $29.95. This very usefiil and accessible volume

covers three areas: directed energy weapons,

military targeting (a broad category that

includes unmanned aerial vehicles), and

command and control. The authors are

solid, mid-level technological experts,

many of them Air Force colonels. (The

latter is not entirely surprising, since the

editor was formerly the director of the

Center for Strategy and Technology at the Air War College.) The book reveals a slight bias toward technological optimism, but most interesting is the discussion of

how information technology may change traditional concepts of command. The

authors' deeply felt anxiety about civilian

FOREIGN AFFAIRS- September / October 2001 [ 16 3 ]

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