How long does it take to read The Guns of August?
The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman takes about 10 hours 33 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 10 hours 33 minutes
A week or two of reading
First published 1962. 575 pages, about 158,125 words.
22 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 17 hours 34 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 10 hours 33 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 6 hours 35 minutes |
The page count is the median across 52 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Published to immediate acclaim in 1962 and the winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1963, The Guns of August is the classic account of the cataclysmic outbreak of World War I in 1914 and the 30 days of battle that followed. This opening clash determined the future course of the war and shaped the history of our century. Its tense drama continues to enthrall readers of Barbara W. Tuchman's magnificent best-selling work, now in 25th anniversary edition with a new preface by the author. In the summer of 1914, Europe with a heap of swords piled as delicately as jackstraws, and not one could be drawn out without upsetting the others. Still, statesmen, field marshals, admirals, kings, and patriots believed what they wanted to believe -- or what they feared not to believe -- and waited in profound ignorance for victory to reveal itself within a matter of weeks. Instead, the holocaust of August was the prelude to 4 bitter years of deadlocked war that cost a generation of European lives. The German, French, English, and Russian General Staffs had had their plans for war completed as early as 10 years before hostilities began. Germany intended to invade France; England had committed her army to cooperation with the French Army. France, bolstered by her alliance with Russia and her "entente" with Britain, designed her strategy in terms solely of the offensive and the attaque brusqueée. Russia planned a pincer invasion of East Prussia while the main German armies were involved in the West. None of these plans allowed for the contingencies of the others, or recognized their own intrinsic errors. Yet for perhaps five years before the war began, each General Staff knew what the others would do; all that was planned. The bloody catalogue of the battles of August 1914 includes the almost mythic names of Liège, Tannenberg, Mons, the Battle of the Frontiers, and Charleroi. And of men like Joffre, indomitably rebuilding his shattered French armies; Samsonov dying a suicide after the…
Subjects: Campaigns, Western Front, Modern History, Causes, History, Front occidental
