book review: The World War 1 Triva Book, by Bill O'Neill

in #books5 years ago

I wanted to get away from all the anger and destruction going on in the world today, so I went looking for some light, fun reading.

I chose World War 1.

Nobody ever claimed I make all the best choices.

My only defense is that the book was a lot more fun than the actual war. In The World War 1 Trivia Book, Bill O'Neil takes us through some interesting stories and random facts from the war, and I know because that's the book's subtitle. It's a quick read (and would be useful, I suspect, for high school students looking for an overview), and O'Neil doesn't go into detail about every battle, or in depth about personalities involved.

He does give us an overview of related subjects, including the new technologies developed during the war. He explains clearly the political and ideological causes that led to the war, including the nations that came and went, before and after. More detail is put into the after-effects, and how they led to World War II and then beyond to linger into present times.

No blood and guts, but O'Neil also doesn't pull any punches about the effects of developing technology on the individual soldiers, and on their difficulty recovering from the conflict.

If you're already soaked in the history of the era this probably won't tell you anything new, but it's a good overview of a bad time, easily understood, and if you want you can ignore the quizzes at the end of chapters. (I got about a 90%, so yay me.)

The only real complaint I have is that the cover shows a World War II era tank, but what the heck.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TN1JCHG

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https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
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Talking about after-effects... May be it's covered in the book already - if not, here is another bit of trivia on WW1:
Did you know, that the so called Spanish Flue (a influenza virus similar to SARS or the Corona virus) killed a lot more people between 1918 and 1920 than the entire war? Between 50 and 100 million it's assumed.
So much about bad choices trying to escape todays cruel reality... :)

That actually is covered in the book--and I hope all those naysayers who think a new virus is no big deal will take notice!

I wouldn't call it no big deal. However, the circumstances today are totally different than they were in 1918. There was no thinking of quarantening people -rather they did the opposite: hundreds of thousands of soldies were shipped around all over the world. In addition, so many people lived in appalling conditions, like the soldier in the muddy trenches and civilians being malnourished. And the strongest medicine they had was Camomile tea with honey.
What worries me on this current virus is, how it is battled by the Chinese. If they keep their industrial production closed for a while, it will have devastating effects on the economy all over the world. Already now some car manufacturers in Europe had to stop production lines, because parts needed are not being send from China any longer. And that will rapidly spread and get worse, if things don't go back to normal in China soon.
This could lead to the big economical and financial crash, that some people have forecast. This virus could be the "black swan" event that triggers the economical big bang, and only God know what the consequences could be.

I think we're past the benefits of quarantining a single country at this point, especially a country like China that seems to still be hiding how bad it really is over there. But it's going to happen anyway, and you're absolutely right--this could be a horrible thing for economies.

In any case, in 1918 they had soldiers traveling around the world, and in 2020 they've got everybody traveling around the world--a hundred years ago travel was rare by individuals outside of the military. If they don't come up with a vaccine for this, I think we're in for a big double whammy of widespread sickness, and damaged economies. Oh, fun.

Its the reaction of the authorities that is absolutely unprecedented. Its as if they want to provoke a economical and financial crash world wide.
May be because it was coming soon anyway, and now they can blame it all on the virus.
There wont be a vaccine any time soon, it takes 6-8 month to develope that. In addition, viruses tend to mutate sometimes, which can render a vaccine useless.
But thats no different to flue waves of the past. I remember winters, when half the population fell ill with flue. Everywhere you went there was staff shortages because people had to stay at home in bed. Even the doctors couldn't handle it anymore. And I bet thousands of people died then just in Germany. But there was never such a hype about it like now, they just said "Stay in bed and wait until its gone." Nobody was quarantined and stuff like that, or factories closed or travel stopped.
This time is really weird. Did you see whats going on at the stock markets world wide? Indexes free falling almost everywhere, 3 or 4, even 5% a day! It looks much like 1929, the start of the great depression period. Not good at all.

I understand the stock markets have taken their worst hit since 1987, with only a few times that bad before this. We were way overdue for what they like to call a "correction", so maybe this is just the trigger for something that was going to happen anyway, as you say. However, some leaders in the Democratic party over here have been caught saying they hope there'll be an economic downtown, so it will harm Donald Trump's Presidency--if anyone puts that together, it could cause a severe backlash against those people, including the Speaker of the House. I can't imagine them trying to make it happen on purpose, but you never know.

The chart of the Dow Jones looks exactly like 1929. After a long rise it falls sharply, about the same amount it did last week. And after that comes a less steep but steady decline over 2 years, all the way to 10% of the high or so.
That was the Great Depression time into the 1930s.
May be they will blame Trump for this, although Obama, Bush jr. and the previous ones all participated in creating this situation. And nobody really has a solution for the problems that exist, whatever party it is. The only answer would be declaring a default of the debit - but then the glory days of the US are over.