Castles of steel

Britain, Germany and the winning of the Great War at sea

  • 5.00 ·
  • 1 Rating
  • 6 Want to read
  • 0 Currently reading
  • 0 Have read

My Reading Lists:

Create a new list

Check-In

×Close
Add an optional check-in date. Check-in dates are used to track yearly reading goals.
Today

  • 5.00 ·
  • 1 Rating
  • 6 Want to read
  • 0 Currently reading
  • 0 Have read

Buy this book

Last edited by ImportBot
October 28, 2022 | History

Castles of steel

Britain, Germany and the winning of the Great War at sea

  • 5.00 ·
  • 1 Rating
  • 6 Want to read
  • 0 Currently reading
  • 0 Have read

In a work of extraordinary narrative power, filled with brilliant personalities and vivid scenes of dramatic action, Robert K. Massie, the Pulitzer Prize--winning author of Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexandra, and Dreadnought, elevates to its proper historical importance the role of sea power in the winning of the Great War.The predominant image of this first world war is of mud and trenches, barbed wire, machine guns, poison gas, and slaughter. A generation of European manhood was massacred, and a wound was inflicted on European civilization that required the remainder of the twentieth century to heal.But with all its sacrifice, trench warfare did not win the war for one side or lose it for the other. Over the course of four years, the lines on the Western Front moved scarcely at all; attempts to break through led only to the lengthening of the already unbearably long casualty lists.For the true story of military upheaval, we must look to the sea. On the eve of the war in August 1914, Great Britain and Germany possessed the two greatest navies the world had ever seen. When war came, these two fleets of dreadnoughts--gigantic floating castles of steel able to hurl massive shells at an enemy miles away--were ready to test their terrible power against each other.Their struggles took place in the North Sea and the Pacific, at the Falkland Islands and the Dardanelles. They reached their climax when Germany, suffocated by an implacable naval blockade, decided to strike against the British ring of steel. The result was Jutland, a titanic clash of fifty-eight dreadnoughts, each the home of a thousand men.When the German High Seas Fleet retreated, the kaiser unleashed unrestricted U-boat warfare, which, in its indiscriminate violence, brought a reluctant America into the war. In this way, the German effort to "seize the trident" by defeating the British navy led to the fall of the German empire.Ultimately, the distinguishing feature of Castles of Steel is the author himself. The knowledge, understanding, and literary power Massie brings to this story are unparalleled. His portrayals of Winston Churchill, the British admirals Fisher, Jellicoe, and Beatty, and the Germans Scheer, Hipper, and Tirpitz are stunning in their veracity and artistry.Castles of Steel is about war at sea, leadership and command, courage, genius, and folly. All these elements are given magnificent scope by Robert K. Massie's special and widely hailed literary mastery.From the Hardcover edition.

Publish Date
Publisher
J. Cape
Language
English
Pages
865

Buy this book

Previews available in: English

Edition Availability
Cover of: Castles of Steel
Castles of Steel
March 3, 2005, Pimlico
Paperback - New Ed edition
Cover of: Castles of steel
Cover of: Castles of Steel
Castles of Steel
2003, Random House Publishing Group
electronic resource in English
Cover of: Castles of steel
Castles of steel: Britain, Germany, and the winning of the Great War at sea
2003, Random House
in English - 1st ed.
Cover of: Castles of steel
Castles of steel: Britain, Germany, and the winning of the Great War at sea
2003, Random House
in English - 1st ed.

Add another edition?

Book Details


Published in

London

Edition Notes

Includes bibliographical references (p. [821]-829) and index.
Originally published: New York : Random House, 2003.

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
940.45941
Library of Congress
D581 .M37 2004

The Physical Object

Pagination
xii, 865 p. :
Number of pages
865

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL3363810M
ISBN 10
0224040928
LCCN
2004426394
OCLC/WorldCat
53123545
Library Thing
20640
Goodreads
1425298

Links outside Open Library

Community Reviews (0)

Feedback?
No community reviews have been submitted for this work.

Lists

This work does not appear on any lists.

History

Download catalog record: RDF / JSON / OPDS | Wikipedia citation
October 28, 2022 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
December 10, 2020 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
July 31, 2019 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
January 18, 2014 Edited by Jessamyn West undo merge authors
October 12, 2010 Edited by Brant Gibbard merge authors