July 1914: Countdown To War

Description

Popular historian Sean McMeekin's story of Europe's countdown to war, told through the eyes of men who, even a century later, still seem larger than life. We meet the brooding Habsburg heir Archduke Ferdinand, the fanatical Bosnian Serb assassins plotting his murder, and the Austrians seeking to exploit his death, recklessly encouraged by Kaiser Wilhelm II. Russian Foreign Minister Sazonov was trying to live down a reputation for cowardice, abetted by two French statesmen. Winston Churchill, alone among Cabinet officials in London, saw the threat in time to take action. It is not true that, as often claimed, no one wanted conflict. Individual statesmen conjured up the conflict - some oozing with malice as they rigged the decks for war. Groundbreaking and powerful, July 1914 makes clear as never before the men responsible for the horrors of the First World War.

Reviews

'Alluding to historical controversies, McMeekin ably delivers what readers demand from a WWI-origins history: a taut rendition of the July 1914 crisis.' -- Booklist

Author description

Sean McMeekin's books include The Berlin-Baghdad Express, The Ottoman Empire and Germany's Bid for World Power (Penguin/Allen Lane) and The Russian Origins of the First World War (Harvard University Press). He lives in Istanbul with his wife, Nesrin, and their daughter, Ayla.