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Title: Provocative, but ...
Review: It is a thought-provoking book which is well worth reading, though the arguments are indeed full of contradictions and sleights-of-hand (...). Some of the most provocative claims are made in a single throw-away sentence, without evidence to back them up.One point I think should be made: (...) the book has not broken the last taboo, etc. In Britain there is a strong tradition of disillusionment with the war, which only began to be challenged in the 1960s. Mr Ferguson's book is part of this dominant tradition.The most original thing about the book is not the arguments, but the form of analysis. Mr Ferguson recognises something that has eluded military historians for too long: war is an economic activity. For example, he considers questions like: how much did it cost to kill each soldier? what was the kill ratio of German soldiers versus Allied soldiers? and so on. Questions like this are so obvious that it is a wonder no one has really asked them before.
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