July Crisis: The World's Descent into War, Summer 1914
"Anyone planning to wade through the vast outpouring of literature on the First World War might do well to make July Crisis their first port of call."Jules Stewart, Military History"By returning meticulously to sources that many historians have ignored, one of Britain's brightest new-generation historians, Thomas Otte, has come up with a startlingly original yet wholly believable new interpretation of the true causes of the Great War. This is historical scholarship at its best, with the bonus of being written with a gently ironic yet extremely funny wit, in a subject that isn't naturally given to it."Andrew Roberts, author of The Storm of War (2010)"This account of the July crisis will become the gold standard for all future historians. Unlike almost all contemporary studies, Otte has gone back to the original sources and used both public and private collections, some never cited before, to trace the unfolding of these fateful days. His judgments are convincing and clearly presented. Otte catches the drama of these weeks and carries the reader with him to the very end."Zara Steiner, author of The Lights That Failed (2005) and The Triumph of the Dark (2011)"The first new analysis of the origins of the war based on original documents, July Crisis: The World's Descent into War will become the classic account. Otte's scholarship is unsurpassed: his judgments are judicious and fair and based on a deep understanding of both the evidence and its context. It is unlikely to be superseded."Keith Neilson, author of Britain, Soviet Russia and the Collapse of the Versailles Order, 1919-1939 (2005)"Thomas Otte brings impeccable and painstaking research and a flair for story-telling to illuminate Europe's last weeks of peace in 1914. From the assassination of the Archduke in Sarajevo to the outbreak of a general war five weeks later, he shows how a series of individual decisions led towards the catastrophe."Margaret MacMillan, author of The War That Ended Peace: How Europe Abandoned Peace for the First World War (2013)