Perhaps the gravest difficulty with any single volume book on the Great War is taming the war’s complexities while still maintaining a degree of nuance and insight that goes beyond the temptation for simplification. Indeed, the war’s scale itself makes this task even more unmanageable. How can an author possibly offer a nuanced treatment that takes into consideration a war fought on three continents, not to mention, the political and social realities on the war’s many home fronts and the changing dynamics of differing and complex societies under strain? To be comprehensive is an impossible task especially given the wealth of history written about the war’s many subfields and distinct niche subjects. No historian can truly have mastery of the Great War’s deep and broad literatures and no single volume can possibly be “comprehensive.” This is not to indicate that the task of a one-volume history is impossible, but only as a caveat to its difficulty. Others have written one-volume histories that provide both insight and depth, while also to sustaining the attention spans of both the public and specialists. Hew Strachan’s condensed survey of the war The First World War is a model of both brevity and complexity, the chapters arranged neatly around conceptual themes important to understanding the trajectory of the

中文翻译：

---

潘多拉的盒子：第一次世界大战的历史，约恩·莱昂哈德

或许任何一本关于大战的单卷书最大的困难是驯服战争的复杂性，同时仍然保持一定程度的细微差别和洞察力，超越了简化的诱惑。事实上，战争的规模本身使这项任务更加难以管理。一位作者怎么可能提供一种细致入微的处理，同时考虑到一场在三大洲进行的战争，更不用说战争许多本土前线的政治和社会现实以及处于压力下的不同和复杂社会不断变化的动态？全面是一项不可能完成的任务，特别是考虑到关于战争的许多子领域和独特的利基主题的丰富历史。没有一个历史学家能够真正掌握一战深厚而广泛的文献，也没有一本书可以“全面”。” 这并不是说一卷历史的任务是不可能的，而只是对其困难的警告。其他人写了一卷历史，提供洞察力和深度，同时也维持公众和专家的注意力。休·斯特拉坎 (Hew Strachan) 对战争的简要概述第一次世界大战既简洁又复杂，各章围绕概念主题整齐排列，对于理解战争的轨迹很重要