Close to a catastrophe

Okay, I’m getting on my Ms. Language-Person cranky horse again. Yesterday I mentioned that I was relieved to leave rock and roll and return to World War I, where I could count on a better class of writing.

And I really like Max Hastings, the British journalist/historian. I’ve read several of his books and have found them accurate and engaging. Most recently I enjoyed All Hell Let Loose, his narrative history of World War II.

But I don’t know what happened with Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War. Specifically, I don’t know what happened with citing his sources. There are a lot more facts that in my opinion need citations, but he only provides references for the ones between quotation marks.

Actually, make that for some of the ones between quotation marks.

(In particular, I’d really like to know which historian(s) he’s slagging off when he says things like “recent analyses claim that XYZ, but…” I think he’s going after Christopher Clark and maybe Sean McMeekin, but I’d really like to know which one, and for which particular allegedly erroneous conclusion(s).)

I mean, it’s all well and good to say “I have omitted references for quotations from the principals’ speeches and statements long in the public record or domain.” But I think that’s a cop-out, because I’m pretty conversant with a lot of the principals' public utterances, and many of the ones here aren’t ringing a bell. For example, on page 85 when he says, “Wilhelm thought Britain would be wise to [not enter the war] in any event, since, as he cleverly observed, ‘dreadnoughts have no wheels.’” No citation.

What—I’m supposed to go Googling that up for myself? No—that’s the historian’s job; that’s what s/he and his/her fact checkers are getting paid to do. Shame on you, Knopf, for letting this kind of thing through.

But then there’s the matter of a citation source that I just plain cannot find anywhere in the book.

On page 75 he says, “A German author predicted in 1910 that during the period of political and military tension preceding any conflict, ‘the press and its key instruments, telegraph and telephone, will exercise immense influence, which may be for either good or ill’. [German Chief of Staff Helmut von] Moltke agreed.”

Well—I wanted to know more about that prediction. But here’s the sum-total of the reference in the end notes: “75 ’the press and its’ Hesse p.2”

When you see a citation with just the author’s name and a page number, it means the work has already appeared in the notes. But I went through every citation from the beginning of the book; nada.

So I looked in the bibliography. There was no work attributed to anyone named Hesse. I sort of think it might be referring to Hermann Hesse, but that’s just a guess. On account of Hermann is the only Hesse I know who’s a German author from around that period. And I Googled variations on the actual quotation, and found nothing.

Plus—there’s no citation for where I could find Moltke agreeing about the influence of communications on building up to war.

Seriously, Max—I’m so disappointed. Was it your hurry to get this published before June? Or you wanted to get it out ASAP to refute Clark and others?

Either way, #professionalfail.