The Great War by Les Carlyon

The Great War

by Les Carlyon

Pan Macmillan Australia, 2006, [First Edition], b/w plates, hardcover, dustjacket, ISBN 9781405037617

Fine Condition, minor edge and shelf wear, dustjacket has minor edge and shelf wear

'Now, in The Great War, Les Carlyon tells the story of these men.  The narrative shifts effortlessly from the huge to the human, from the political salons of London and St Petersburg to trenches that smell of mildew on sandbags and old blood.  Carlyon describes the grand strategies, but never loses sight of ordinary soldiers caught up in the first big war of the industrial age, a war that turned out to be nothing like they thought it would be.  With a novelist's eye for detail and anecdote, he takes us back to their world and their war.  Meticulously researched and authoritative, The Great War gives us all an understanding of how and why we lost a generation of Australians between 1916 and 1918.
Carlyon wanders the battlefields of France and Belgium and re-creates the hellish landscapes of ninety years ago.  He again demonstrates a unique ability to present history as mesmerising narrative.  The Great War is a superb sequel to the number-one bestseller Gallipoli.  It will stand as the most brilliant account of what is still the major event in Australia's military history.'