Dance of the Furies

Dance of the Furies

Author: Michael S. Neiberg

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2011-04-25

Total Pages: 331

ISBN-13: 0674049543

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

By training his eye on the ways that people outside the halls of power reacted to the rapid onset and escalation of the fighting in 1914, Neiberg dispels the notion that Europeans were rabid nationalists intent on mass slaughter. He reveals instead a complex set of allegiances that cut across national boundaries.


An Improbable War?

An Improbable War?

Author: Holger Afflerbach

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 381

ISBN-13: 0857453106

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The First World War has been described as the "primordial catastrophe of the twentieth century." Arguably, Italian Fascism, German National Socialism and Soviet Leninism and Stalinism would not have emerged without the cultural and political shock of World War I. The question why this catastrophe happened therefore preoccupies historians to this day. The focus of this volume is not on the consequences, but rather on the connection between the Great War and the long 19th century, the short- and long-term causes of World War I. This approach results in the questioning of many received ideas about the war's causes, especially the notion of "inevitability."


The Outbreak of the First World War

The Outbreak of the First World War

Author: Jack S. Levy

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-04-03

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 1107042453

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This volume brings together leading historians and international relations scholars to debate the causes of the First World War.


Encyclopaedia Britannica

Encyclopaedia Britannica

Author: Hugh Chisholm

Publisher:

Published: 1910

Total Pages: 1090

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This eleventh edition was developed during the encyclopaedia's transition from a British to an American publication. Some of its articles were written by the best-known scholars of the time and it is considered to be a landmark encyclopaedia for scholarship and literary style.


The Outbreak of World War I

The Outbreak of World War I

Author: Holger H. Herwig

Publisher: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Company

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This volume in the Problems in European Civilization series presents the diversity of viewpoints held by the field' s most eminent historians. The editor accompanies the essays and documents with his own essay, providing historical context and insights on each problem discussed.


The Outbreak of the First World War

The Outbreak of the First World War

Author: David Stevenson

Publisher: Palgrave

Published: 1997-01

Total Pages: 72

ISBN-13: 9780333583272

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Stevenson provides a synthesis of the historical research into why, in 1914, a Balkan conflict escalated into a general European war, setting events within the context of the breakdown of international stability since the turn of the century


July 1914

July 1914

Author: Sean McMeekin

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2014-04-29

Total Pages: 482

ISBN-13: 0465038867

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

When a Serbian-backed assassin gunned down Archduke Franz Ferdinand in late June 1914, the world seemed unmoved. Even Ferdinand's own uncle, Franz Josef I, was notably ambivalent about the death of the Hapsburg heir, saying simply, "It is God's will." Certainly, there was nothing to suggest that the episode would lead to conflict -- much less a world war of such massive and horrific proportions that it would fundamentally reshape the course of human events. As acclaimed historian Sean McMeekin reveals in July 1914, World War I might have been avoided entirely had it not been for a small group of statesmen who, in the month after the assassination, plotted to use Ferdinand's murder as the trigger for a long-awaited showdown in Europe. The primary culprits, moreover, have long escaped blame. While most accounts of the war's outbreak place the bulk of responsibility on German and Austro-Hungarian militarism, McMeekin draws on surprising new evidence from archives across Europe to show that the worst offenders were actually to be found in Russia and France, whose belligerence and duplicity ensured that war was inevitable. Whether they plotted for war or rode the whirlwind nearly blind, each of the men involved -- from Austrian Foreign Minister Leopold von Berchtold and German Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov and French president Raymond Poincaré- sought to capitalize on the fallout from Ferdinand's murder, unwittingly leading Europe toward the greatest cataclysm it had ever seen. A revolutionary account of the genesis of World War I, July 1914 tells the gripping story of Europe's countdown to war from the bloody opening act on June 28th to Britain's final plunge on August 4th, showing how a single month -- and a handful of men -- changed the course of the twentieth century.


The Economics of World War I

The Economics of World War I

Author: Stephen Broadberry

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2005-09-29

Total Pages: 363

ISBN-13: 1139448358

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This unique volume offers a definitive new history of European economies at war from 1914 to 1918. It studies how European economies mobilised for war, how existing economic institutions stood up under the strain, how economic development influenced outcomes and how wartime experience influenced post-war economic growth. Leading international experts provide the first systematic comparison of economies at war between 1914 and 1918 based on the best available data for Britain, Germany, France, Russia, the USA, Italy, Turkey, Austria-Hungary and the Netherlands. The editors' overview draws some stark lessons about the role of economic development, the importance of markets and the damage done by nationalism and protectionism. A companion volume to the acclaimed The Economics of World War II, this is a major contribution to our understanding of total war.


The Russian Origins of the First World War

The Russian Origins of the First World War

Author: Sean McMeekin

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2013-05-06

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 0674072332

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The catastrophe of the First World War, and the destruction, revolution, and enduring hostilities it wrought, make the issue of its origins a perennial puzzle. Since World War II, Germany has been viewed as the primary culprit. Now, in a major reinterpretation of the conflict, Sean McMeekin rejects the standard notions of the war’s beginning as either a Germano-Austrian preemptive strike or a “tragedy of miscalculation.” Instead, he proposes that the key to the outbreak of violence lies in St. Petersburg. It was Russian statesmen who unleashed the war through conscious policy decisions based on imperial ambitions in the Near East. Unlike their civilian counterparts in Berlin, who would have preferred to localize the Austro-Serbian conflict, Russian leaders desired a more general war so long as British participation was assured. The war of 1914 was launched at a propitious moment for harnessing the might of Britain and France to neutralize the German threat to Russia’s goal: partitioning the Ottoman Empire to ensure control of the Straits between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Nearly a century has passed since the guns fell silent on the western front. But in the lands of the former Ottoman Empire, World War I smolders still. Sunnis and Shiites, Arabs and Jews, and other regional antagonists continue fighting over the last scraps of the Ottoman inheritance. As we seek to make sense of these conflicts, McMeekin’s powerful exposé of Russia’s aims in the First World War will illuminate our understanding of the twentieth century.


A Mad Catastrophe

A Mad Catastrophe

Author: Geoffrey Wawro

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2014-04-29

Total Pages: 30

ISBN-13: 0465080812

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A masterful account of the Hapsburg Empire's bumbling entrance into World War I, and its rapid collapse on the Eastern Front The Austro-Hungarian army that attacked Russia and Serbia in August 1914 had a glorious past but a pitiful present. Speaking a mystifying array of languages and lugging obsolete weapons, the Habsburg troops were hopelessly unprepared for the industrialized warfare that would shortly consume Europe. As prizewinning historian Geoffrey Wawro explains in A Mad Catastrophe, the disorganization of these doomed conscripts perfectly mirrored Austria-Hungary itself. For years, the Empire had been rotting from within, hollowed out by complacency and corruption at the highest levels. When Germany goaded Austria into starting the world war, the Empire's profound political and military weaknesses were exposed. By the end of 1914, the Austro-Hungarian army lay in ruins and the course of the war seemed all but decided. Reconstructing the climax of the Austrian campaign in gripping detail, A Mad Catastrophe is a riveting account of how Austria-Hungary plunged the West into a tragic and unnecessary war.