Silent Night: The Remarkable Christmas Truce of 1914

Book review by Deane Barker • • tags: history, world-war-one, military •
An image of the cover of the book "Silent Night: The Remarkable Christmas Truce of 1914"

I loved the idea of this book, but the reality was a mess.

The problem with documenting the Christmas Truce (an actual event) is that it’s told largely in legend. It was impromptu and distributed – it happened with no advance notice, and it happened all up and down the Ypres front.

As a result, recollections of it are fragmented. The author is just left to tell random scraps of stories about it.

And I feel like he could have done better. It’s disorganized and hard to follow. I don’t know if it was his writing style, his lack of organization, or what, but I struggled to follow the narrative.

Sadly, I quit the book just past the halfway point.

Book Info

Author
Stanley Weintraub
Year
Pages
256
Acquired
  • I have read this book. According to my records, I completed it on .
  • A softcover copy of this book is currently in my home library.
Links to this – The Battle of Versailles: The Night American Fashion Stumbled into the Spotlight and Made History September 10, 2024
In microcosm, this is the story of a single event – a fashion show outside Paris in 1973 that was over in about three hours. But if you take a longer view, it’s a story of the history of fashion to that point, and its intersection with race in America. The Palace of Versailles is where the last...