World War I: A Political and Diplomatic History of the Modern World

Mann, Tara L., ed. World War I: A Political and Diplomatic History of the Modern World. 2017. 290p. ISBN 978-1-68048-359-8. Available at 940.3 WOR on the library shelves.

European nations have always felt threatened by their neighbors. In the early 1900s, this fear of the other led nations to ally themselves in two large blocks, the Triple Entente of France, the United Kingdom and Russia, and the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. Both groups were designed to protect members from the other groups. The assassination of the heir to Austria-Hungary in 1914 sparks a war that all projects to be short, but that was anything but. Over the course of four years, millions of soldiers and civilians died, empires collapsed, and military bureaucracies emerged the wring out ever more efficiencies out of the state at the expense of the citizens.

Tensions had been building before, however, and remained even after the conflict was concluded. World War I provides an excellent summary of the war, its causes, and the changed face of Europe and the world when soldiers finally emerged out of the trenches. The war's major events are covered, with a focus on the technologies that changed the battlefield and the human costs associated with such a long and dramatic conflict. It revises the notion that Germany was stabbed in the back by its civilian leadership and allocates faults with all participants, though some more than others. Fans of history will appreciate the extensive details and the shape of relations between these nations throughout this period of history.