Product Description

Jeff Shaara has enthralled readers with his New York Times bestselling novels set during the Civil War and the American Revolution. Now the acclaimed author turns to World War I, bringing to life the sweeping, emotional story of the war that devastated a generation and established America as a world power.

Spring 1916: the horror of a stalemate on Europe’s western front. France and Great Britain are on one side of the barbed wire, a fierce German army is on the other. Shaara opens the window onto the otherworldly tableau of trench warfare as seen through the eyes of a typical British soldier who experiences the bizarre and the horrible–a “Tommy” whose innocent youth is cast into the hell of a terrifying war.

In the skies, meanwhile, technology has provided a devastating new tool, the aeroplane, and with it a different kind of hero emerges–the flying ace. Soaring high above the chaos on the ground, these solitary knights duel in the splendor and terror of the skies, their courage and steel tested with every flight.

As the conflict stretches into its third year, a neutral America is goaded into war, its reluctant president, Woodrow Wilson, finally accepting the repeated challenges to his stance of nonalignment. Yet the Americans are woefully unprepared and ill equipped to enter a war that has become worldwide in scope. The responsibility is placed on the shoulders of General John “Blackjack” Pershing, and by mid-1917 the first wave of the American Expeditionary Force arrives in Europe. Encouraged by the bold spirit and strength of the untested Americans, the world waits to see if the tide of war can finally be turned.

From Blackjack Pershing to the Marine in the trenches, from the Red Baron to the American pilots of the Lafayette Escadrille, To the Last Man is written with the moving vividness and accuracy that characterizes all of Shaara’s work. This spellbinding new novel carries readers–the way only Shaara can–to the heart of one of the greatest conflicts in human history, and puts them face-to-face with the characters who made a lasting impact on the world.


From the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8175 in Books
• Published on: 2005-08-30
• Released on: 2005-08-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 672 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Moving on from the American Revolution and the Civil War, Shaara (The Glorious Cause, etc.) delivers an epic account of the American experience in WWI. As usual, he narrates from the perspective of actual historical figures, moving from the complexity of high-level politics and diplomacy to the romance of the air fight and the horrors of trench warfare. Gen. John J. "Black Jack" Pershing commands all American forces in France in 1917–1918 and must prepare his army for a new kind of war while resisting French and British efforts to absorb his troops into their depleted, worn-out units. Two aviators, American Raoul Lufbery and German Manfred von Richthofen (the Red Baron) fly primitive aircraft in an air war that introduces new ways to die. And Pvt. Roscoe Temple, U.S. Marine Corps, fights with rifle and bayonet in the mud and blood of Belleau Wood and the Argonne Forest. These men and a supporting cast of other real-life characters provide a gruesomely graphic portrayal of the brutality and folly of total war. Shaara's storytelling is occasionally mechanical—he has yet to rise to the Pulitzer Prize–winning level of his father, Michael Shaara (The Killer Angels, etc.)—but his descriptions of individual combat in the air and the mass slaughter on the ground are stark, vivid and gripping. He also offers compelling portraits of the politicians and generals whose strategies and decisions killed millions and left Europe a discontented wasteland.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Viewed from a distance, the campaigns on the Western Front from 1914-18 appear as a pitiless, mechanistic meat grinder, chewing up thousands of lives on a daily basis in a futile conflict without moral justification. So it is important to be reminded that the officers who launched these campaigns and the ordinary soldiers who fought in them were not mere automatons. Shaara, who has previously written celebrated historical novels about the Civil War and the Revolutionary War, again displays his gift for portraying the intensely human side of warriors. He focuses on the experiences of four historical figures, including the American General John "Black Jack" Pershing and the German air ace von Richtofen (the famed Red Baron). Although told primarily from an American perspective, the narrative gives appropriate attention to the attitudes and aspirations of both ordinary and prominent German military figures. When Shaara's characters are away from the front or not directly engaged in action, they indulge in soldier chatter, and the plot tends to drag. But Shaara is at his best in describing scenes of battle. He presents the horror of trench warfare in gory but necessary detail. When the action moves to aerial combat, Shaara offers images of strangely antiseptic beauty, as if airmen are somehow removed from the squalor beneath. This is first-rate storytelling that aptly describes aspects of a conflict that continues to shape our world today. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
Praise for To the Last Man

“A gripping account of World War I–from tactics to strategy. The reader feels the horror of the trenches in France and is drawn into the maneuvering of political and military leaders on both sides of the battle. Jeff Shaara shows the dominance of the U.S. military in the context of coalition warfare–as relevant today as it was in 1918.”
–GENERAL TOMMY R. FRANKS

“A sweeping, searching look at World War I. Jeff Shaara’s novel rings with authenticity, from the feelings of frontline soldiers to the challenges of high-level command.”
–GENERAL WESLEY CLARK

“Jeff Shaara has again demonstrated that rarest of writing gifts, making literature read like history and history read like literature. He has now shone that talent on another era as he brings World War I to pulsating life.”
–JOSEPH E. PERSICO, author of Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour

“The best novel about the Great War since Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, which it greatly surpasses in depth, scope, and intensity. . . . This account of how the war was really fought will be a real eye opener for anyone interested in historical fiction or modern history.”
–JOHN MOSIER, author of The Myth of the Great War

“A riveting masterpiece revolving around the ghastly conflict that still profoundly defines the world we live in. With To the Last Man, Shaara cements his reputation as a war writer of Tolstoyan or Homeric dimensions.”
–STEVE FORBES

“Jeff Shaara’s To the Last Man lets you live WWI in the air, in the mud, and in the councils of government in a way that makes you understand how the participants experienced it. Von Richtofen, Lufbery, Ludendorff, and Pershing come alive.”
–MAJOR GENERAL JOHN S. GRINALDS, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.),
President, The Citadel
...

Customer Reviews

A Masterpiece
You can't go wrong with a book by Jeff Shaara. His historical "novels" are really a true history that cannot be told within the confines of a historical work. A historian can't take his best guess at how actual (undocumented) dialogue took place or give you insight into the undocumented thoughts and feelings of historical characters. In other words, a "nonfiction" historical work cannot really make the story come to life in the same way that this wonderful craftsman does. I loved reading about the dawn of arial combat. The incredible prowess and courage of the Lafayette Escadrille as well as that of Germans such as the Legebdary Red Baron. Shaara is very balanced and strives to present a very interesting and informative story that is as close to the truth as practical. There is a character, Roscoe Temple, who is a composite. Shaara used him to tell the story of several different actual US Marines. But I believe that all the other characters, the main ones at least, were actual histtorical figures.

I was impressed and felt more than a touch of pride (in spite of the fact that I am anti-war and feel that we probably should have kept out of it) at how the US changed the course of that war. The Marines can be especially proud of their tradition. I highly recommend this book for anyone who would like to be entertained while they are being informed and made to feel like you were actually there.

AWESOME ON AN OFTEN OVERLOKKED WAR
Typically great Shaara novel explaining such things as why this was the first time the Marines went to war in Army uniforms.

Winning the War/Losing the Peace?


Skillful writing of realistic war scenes: I'll grant Shaara that. However, he is too sure about the wisdom of American involvement in World War 1. The last one & 1/2 sentences Shaara writes are telling: "...clear consensus[sic].If the United States army had not arrived when it did and had not fought the way it did ,the Allies would have lost the war." There is no "clear consensus" grounds here since neither side might have won-If the U.S. had not entered the war.

Even Winston Churchill,whose name is not even mentioned in the book,had strong opposition to the U.S. entering the war; even though Churchill was probably at least partly responsible for the "Lusitania" tragedy. Maybe Churchill wanted the threat of American intervention without the actuality. The Germans were apparently ready for an early armistice in 1917, but with the American entry they made horrific attacks,hoping to win the war before the Americans turned the tide. So, millions more died. And the "peace" was lost as both Russia and Germany, outcasts, went on to even worse plans than those of 1917-1918. Without Germany to rein in Russia tens of millions died in the Soviet Union due to Stalin's misrule. One could say that the current world empire was born in 1917-1918; it is this empire which must bear major indirect responsibility for the catastrophic wreckage create by Stalin, Hitler, Mao,etc as well more direct responsibility for the millions dead in war,famine and disease in Korea, Vietnam, Latin America, Iraq & Iran, Africa,etc. Such "glory"! One could argue, of course, that empires have always been "inefficient", to be euphemistic about it, but let's own up to our responsibilities so that more thoughtful days may come.

Shaara actually ends his book with two quotes from French Field Marshal Foch[a nine word platitude] and a more telling quote from the French general Mangin, commander of the 10th Army: "...I am proud to have fought with you [American comrades] for the deliverance of the world."

May we receive God's glorious peace:Deliver our world from human "glory".