Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War

ISBN: 0345375564

Author: Massie, Robert K.

Condition: New

A gripping chronicle of the personal and national rivalries that led to the twentieth centurys first great arms race, from Pulitzer Prize winner Robert K. MassieWith the biographers 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 Blow; Britains 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 DreadnoughtDreadnought is history in the grand manner, as most people prefer it: how people shaped, or were shaped by, events.-TimeA 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 JournalBrilliant on everything he writes about ships and the sea. It is Massies eye for detail that makes his nautical set pieces so marvelously evocative.-Los Angeles Times