By Mark Rhodes

Military historian, Peter Doyle’s masterful, thoughtful and fascinating book World War I in 100 Objects (Plume) is not only a captivating chronicle of The Great War pictorially, it is also a spellbinding bit of storytelling by Mr. Doyle. The book could have easily functioned as a coffee table-style book, coasting along on the mesmerizing images such as a Pickelhaube (a German style ceremonial hat), a nasty looking Butcher bayonet, a Trench art ring (trench art being a sort of folk art using the residual artifacts of war like shell casings to manufacture jewelry and so on).