Originally Posted by
bignickel
Took 1.5 months, but finally finished it. Slow at start, but all that detail means you really know whats at stake by the time you get to Jutland. Amazing book.
One of the main points I took away from the book were how brave those sailors were, and how incredibly incompetent some of the commanders were. Especially when no one bothers mentioning to Jellicoe that the enemy just happens to be slipping by behind them, trying to escape...
castles of steel is a fun book to read. Very good for the first half of of the war. It contains some technical errors, but overall a good read.
I do think Massie is something of a Jellicoe fan, because the book more or less ends after the battle of Jutland, when Jellicoe was making his greatest errors (the battle against the u-boats).
All in all I found his book Dreadnought much much better. That book explains
how and why the Great War started. That book, combined with The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman gives a very thorough explanation about the run-up to and the first month of the Great War.