Europe's Last Summer: Who Started the Great War in 1914?

Authors: Fromkin, David
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
BISAC/Subject: HIS037070, POL012000, HIS027090
ISBN: 9780307425782, Related ISBNs: 0307425789, 0375411569, 037572575X, 9780307425782, 9780375411564
Classification: Non-Fiction
Number of pages: 384,
Audience: General/trade
Synopsis: When war broke out in Europe in 1914, it surprised a European population enjoying the most beautiful summer in memory. For nearly a century since, historians have debated the causes of the war. Some have cited the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand; others have concluded it was unavoidable.

In Europe’s Last Summer, David Fromkin provides a different answer: hostilities were commenced deliberately. In a riveting re-creation of the run-up to war, Fromkin shows how German generals, seeing war as inevitable, manipulated events to precipitate a conflict waged on their own terms. Moving deftly between diplomats, generals, and rulers across Europe, he makes the complex diplomatic negotiations accessible and immediate. Examining the actions of individuals amid larger historical forces, this is a gripping historical narrative and a dramatic reassessment of a key moment in the twentieth-century.
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