• About this Book

Written by Robert K. Massie

• Format: Trade Paperback, 1040 pages
 
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• On Sale: September 15, 1992
• Price: $21.95
• ISBN: 978-0-345-37556-8 (0-345-37556-4)

about this book

From the author of Peter the Great comes a richly textured and gripping chronicle of the personal and national rivalries that led to the twentieth century's first great arms race and the bloodbath of World War I. With the biographer's rare genius for expressing the essence of extraordinary lives, Massie brings to life a crowd of glittering figures: the single-minded Admiral von Tirpitz; the young, ambitious Winston Churchill; the ruthless sycophantic Chancellor Bernhard von Bulow; Britain's greatest 20th century Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey; and Jacky Fisher, the eccentric admiral who revolutionized the British Navy and brought forth the first true battleship, H.M.S. Dreadnought.

Their story, and the story of the era, filled with misunderstandings, missed opportunities, and events leading to the unintended conclusions, unfolds like a Greek tragedy in this powerful narrative. Dreadnought is history at its most riveting.

"A classic...engrossing in its glittering gallery of characters." —Chicago Sun Times

"Brilliant on everything he writes about ships and the sea. It is Massie's eye for detail that makes his nautical set pieces so marvelously evocative."—Los Angeles Times

Partial TABLE OF CONTENTS
Trafalgar; Introduction; Part 1-1. Victoria and Bertie; 2. Vicky and Willy; 3. “Blood and Iron”; 4. Bismarck’s Grand Design; 5. The New Course; 6. “The Monster of the Labryinth”; 7. Bülow and Weltmacht; 8. “Ships of My Own”; 9. Tirpitz and the German Navy Laws; Part 2-10. Lord Salisbury; 11. The Jameson Raid and the Kruger Telegram; 12. “Joe”; 13. Fashoda; 14. Samoa and William’s Visit to Windsor; 15. The Boer War and the Boxer Rebellion; 16. The “Khaki Election” and the Death of Queen Victoria; 17. The End of Anglo-German Alliance Negotiations; 18. Arthur Balfour; 19. Joseph Chamberlain and Imperial Preference; 20. Lord Lansdowne and the Anglo-French Entente; 21. The Morocco Crisis of 1905; ...
(For complete Table of Contents, e-mail LELEE@randomhouse.com.)