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Title: Almost, not quite
Review: One could be daunted by the size of "Dreadnaught" but having finished it, I must say that overall it is an excellent book that doesn't quite measure up to its intentions or the hype. Massie is superb in his biographical sketches and he gets the general thrust and parry of Great Power politics. Where he comes up short is that the reader is lured into the notion that the Naval Arms race was what really lit the fuse to WWI. The truth is, of course, more complex. He doesn't bring out the inter-relationships among the Russo-Japanese War, the annexation of Bosnia/Herzegovina, and the amoral oneupsmanship of the Great Power leaders and diplomats. He doesn't provide the perspective between the importance of the arms competition on land and that at sea. All that aside, I would recommend this book because it covers a large subject and a large time frame and still tells the story well.
