To the Last Man: A Novel of the First World War

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In novel after novel, Jeffrey M. Shaara re-creates the visceral experience of war. Whether writing about the Revolutionary War, the Mexican War, or the War Between the States, he conveys the nervous anticipation and sudden horror of actual combat. In To the Last Man, he presents the "Great War" through the frightened eyes of a common British soldier.

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. (Nov.) Forecast: Numbers-wise, this should match Shaara's previous efforts, helped along by a 12-city author tour and vigorous promotion. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

This epic story of America's involvement in World War I differs slightly from Shaara's previous works, which covered the American Revolution, the Mexican War, and the Civil War, as it involves mostly unknown people. How Marine Pvt. Roscoe Temple dealt with the grinding horror of trench warfare and pilot Raoul Lufbury's involvement in the evolution of air war are indeed gripping sagas. But historical figures pop up as well. Shaara ably chronicles the difficulties of Gen. John "Black Jack" Pershing, who had to fight both the Germans and unbending bureaucracies in Washington, DC, as well as his "Allies," who wanted to dismember the U.S. Army and parcel it out as replacements for their own use. Nor are the Germans ignored; Manfred von Richtofen, the Red Baron, is sympathetically portrayed. World War I was murder on an awesome scale, and its impact lives on today. Sadly, it is either minimally understood or totally forgotten-something this book may help correct. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 7/04.]-Robert Conroy, Warren, MI Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Military novelist turns to WWI and fits its sprawling destruction into his usual flat template. After two Civil War sequels to his late father's The Killer Angels and a pair of American Revolution novels, Shaara (The Glorious Cause, 2002, etc.) leaps to the 20th century, and, true to form, presents a cast of characters chosen for their ability to be in exciting places at exciting times, not to mention a tendency to declaim at some length about the epic struggle they're undertaking. Of the four main players, though, only one, American private Roscoe Temple, is involved in the trench warfare that's the hallmark of WWI. Most of the story's turgid first half is taken up by the at-a-distance conflict between Lafayette Escadrille ace Raoul Lufbery and Germany's Baron von Richthofen, something that could have been thrilling at a third the length but here seems only to mark time until 1917, when American ground forces finally join the fray. At that point, the fourth character, American Expeditionary Force commander General Pershing, comes on stage, the better to expound at length to himself (in interior monologues) and to subordinates (like a young General Patton) about strategy. Beyond some canned textbook tidbits, there's not much in the way of historical analysis here-unlike his father Michael, Jeff has little knack for rendering a historical period's mindset or the inner forces that drive its people-the better to churn out more square-jawed action for the armchair general set, who will likely snap this one up as well. A reader gets no sense of the generation-destroying despair that this war's vast and mechanized slaughter unleashed. Instead, there's only a disturbingly cozy regurgitation ofmilitary historical cliches leading up to the glorious moment when America saves the day (again). Shaara's admittedly impressive command of the details serves less to illuminate a titanic struggle than to keep readers comfortably at a distance. First printing of 200,000