"Murray has delivered an important work, taking us beyond the usual stereotypical treatments of the run-up to Armageddon. The volume is an important addition to a growing body of scholarship that contextualizes the Great War."—Gary P. Cox, Journal of Military History
"This is essential reading for those interested in the events of the early weeks of World War I."—A. A. Nofi, StrategyPage
"Rocky Road is an excellent account of the technical and theoretical evolution of trench warfare. It is essential to the history of WWI because it illustrates that the combatants did not merely burrow into the ground in the fall of 1914. Instead they took advantage of what they had learned by observation or by experience in the years before the war."—Col. Gregory Fornenot (ret.), Military Review
"[I]nvaluable in contextualizing the use of trench warfare in World War I."—Army Magazine