This is a very informative book. It covers the high points of the activities surrounding the "war to end all wars". It gives the reader a good taste of WWI and gives direction for future reading on this fascinating topic. ( )

This was a nice little book that gave an non-detailed look at the war, who battled who and how it affected the face of Europe - WWI caused the end of 4 dynasties - Germans(Prussian), Hapsburgs (Austria/Hungary), Ottomans (Turkey), and the Romanovs (Russians). It was also the first war that was fought without "chivalry" where innocent women and children were killed without thought and non-military naval vessels were targeted. ( )

A quite adequate overview of the Great War that involved all of Europe and some .of lots of other places. Read while on my first trip to Europe ( )

World War One: History in an Hour can be read in about an hour as claimed. But how well does it cover its topic? I was left with questions. I had little familiarity with World War I when I started the book, so I probably wouldn't notice many factual errors. However, there were enough spelling and typographical/formatting errors to cause me to question the accuracy of the facts presented in the book. I did find one seemingly factual error. In the section of text discussing the execution of Edith Cavell, Albert Zimmermann is referred to as Alfred Zimmermann. In a search for more information about Edith Cavell, I discovered that the Wikipedia article also refers to him as “Alfred” rather than “Albert”. Draw your own conclusions here.

The text is arranged topically rather than chronologically. Several times I found myself backtracking in the text to figure out what year something happened, since often the dates provided in the text are only the month and day. While this wasn't the brief introduction to the war I had hoped it would be, I do think the topical arrangement may make it a handy reference source for the additional World War I reading in my plans for the year.

17 Jul 2014 ETA: The author correctly identifies Alfred Zimmermann as the German Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs who wrote a defense of Edith Cavell's execution that was published in the New York Times. A response to Zimmermann's defense written by James Montgomery Beck incorrectly identifies him as Albert Zimmermann. The response was reprinted more than once after its initial publication in the New York Times and copies of the reprints appear in a number of library catalogs, as well as in digital repositories. The author very graciously notified me of the error in my review, and he assures me that he does not use Wikipedia as a primary source for his research. I offer a sincere apology for my error. ( )

Just the facts in not much more than an hour. Told me a lot I didn't know.
Good read ( )