Had planned on reading Ken Follett’s historical fiction novel Fall of Giants (volume one of the so-called Century Trilogy) but seems a number of other Char-Meck Library users have the same idea, so will have to put that on my to-do list.
As such, have started on another trilogy, this one about the American Revolution.
It must be this thread causing a rush on Fall of Giants
I’m almost finished with John Toland’s classic “Rising Sun,” (a beast of a book, but excellent) after I just finished William Shirer’s “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” (a beast of a book, but excellent), but hadn’t consider Follett…might need something bit lighter…thinking about rereading “The Complete Calvin and Hobbes,” I need a break from humanity I think.
https://www.guns.com/news/2013/05/24/the-m95-steyr-mannlicher-rifle-a-bargain-bolt-action
Neat little article on Austria’s main battle rifle in WWI, the M95.
Finished Christopher Clark’s Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Fall of Prussia a few months ago. Heavy but worth the read.
For those interested, the 1964 BBC 26-part The First World War documentary is on youtube…I just told my students about it and though none will likely watch any part of it, thought folks here might be interested.
“none will likely watch any part of it” 
Welcome to the world of higher education…it ain’t rainbows and unicorns…
There’s a lot of chaff, but there’s still some wheat to be found.
I’ll give the BBC history a go. Doesn’t take long for Mecklenburg – the German duchy, of course – to get mentioned in the first episode.
It’s a bit Anglo-centric, but still an excellent documentary…BBC does some great work and this is right up there with others like World at War and Victory at Sea…
Aren’t most WWI documentaries Anglo-centric? They got to write the history of the war in their own light after all.
In many respects I would say they’re more “western front” centric, (which does, by nature, mean a lot of Anglo-France) although the excellent 10-part documentary from about 10 years ago does, in my opinion, a better job trying to bring the other fronts into the larger picture. The problem remains the Eastern Front and the Balkans…both just get neglected in many documentaries and only becomes “interesting” in 1917.
The East Africa campaign also gets overlooked. Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck is one of the interesting characters in the war, IMO. I suppose the British overlook it for good reason. 
There was a really good documentary about the war in Africa that I saw a few years ago, but I can’t remember who produced it (or the full title), but there’s been some good scholarship about it and about the use of colonial troops on the western front.
Race and War in France by Richard Fogarty is a good one on colonial troops fighting in the French Army. I heard him speak at a conference a few years back.
I’ve been waiting for an electronic version for a while now, but might have to get it off the shelf to read. I’ve heard it’s worth the read.
Thanks for posting that, I’m 4 episodes in and enjoying it. It does remind me of World at War which was a great series.
Yeah, Wilson was a pretty ill fellow that last year and a half in office, with the flu followed by the stroke…