July 1914: countdown to war
McMeekin, SeanDallas Morning News “The conventional wisdom of the last 100 years holds that Germany's desire for empire and cultural hegemony turned Princip's deed into an excuse for war. Barbara Tuchman's famed history, The Guns of August, makes the most of this case. Sean McMeekin...argues that ambitions in Russia and France were at least as responsible and traces the foibles of Europe's major powers in a month that launched a disaster for them all.... McMeekin praises Tuchman's 1962 epic for inspiring him to write July 1914. What he's delivered is a strong challenge to The Guns of August.” The Independent (London) “Lucid, convincing and full of rich detail, the book is a triumph for the narrative method and a vivid demonstration that chronology is the logic of history.”