A review by leslielu67
The Beauty and the Sorrow by Peter Englund

5.0

This was an awesome book. The author chronicled 20 participants in WW One through their journal entries. The people included soldiers, both high rank and low, as well as civilians, surgeons, nurses and ambulance drivers, and the theaters ranged from the trenches to submarines to Turkey and Africa. The journal entries were chronological, and Englund describes the events and troop movements that are relevant to the entry and the participant; the result is a very readable account of the war from this wide range of participants. More than one describe the excitement and adventure of going off to war, then the realization that it has become a slaughter with an energy and momentum that is unstoppable.