Despite the avalanche of books written about the First World War in recent years, there have been comparatively few books that deliver a comprehensive account of the war and its campaigns from start to finish. A conflict of unparalleled cruelty, the Great War abruptly put an end to the peace and prosperity Europe had enjoyed in the summer of 1914. In a riveting narrative that puts diaries, letters and action reports to good use, British military historian John Keegan delivers a stunningly vivid history of the Great War in The First World War. While its elegant prose and choice quotations made the most vivid impression on me, its scarcity of maps and pictures serve as its major drawbacks. Nevertheless these are relatively minor blemishes on a distinguished and highly readable achievement.

World War I is a cataclysm shrouded in "mystery," as Keegan aptly describes it. In his sterling account...