Europe's Last Summer

Description

A riveting narrative of a crucial time in twentieth century history. The Great War not only destroyed the lives of over twenty million soldiers and civilians, it also ushered in a century of huge political and social upheaval, led directly to the Second World War and altered for ever the mechanisms of governments. And yet its causes, both long term and immediate, have continued to be shrouded in mystery. In Europe's Last Summer, David Fromkin reveals a new pattern in the happenings of that fateful July and August, which leads in unexpected directions. Rather than one war, starting with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, he sees two conflicts, related but not inseparably linked, whose management drew Europe and the world into what The Economist described as early as 1914 as 'perhaps the greatest tragedy in human history'.

David Fromkin is Professor of International Relations, History, and Law at Boston University. He is the author of In the Time of the Americans and A Peace to End All Peace, which was a finalist for both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

He has a gift for seeing the whole world and for packing complicated material into a few boldly stroked sentences * New York Times * Fromkin gives some excellent pen portraits of the principals and uses quotations to deadly effect * Sunday Times * A crisp, lively, day-by-day account of that fateful summer... This book, both decisive and nuanced, is as convincing as it is appalling * Foreign Affairs * An absorbing history of WWI's origins... Superb * Newsweek * An enormously impressive book, a popular history brimming with fresh scholarship * Weekly Standard *