The War That Ended Peace

Starred review from September 9, 2013
Macmillan, professor of international history at Oxford, follows her Paris 1919 with another richly textured narrative about WWI, this time addressing the war’s build-up. She asks, “What made 1914 different?” and wonders why Europe “walk over the cliff” given the continent’s relatively longstanding peace. She begins by addressing Germany’s misfortune in having “a child for King”; Wilhelm II sought to secure Germany’s—and his own—world power status by inaugurating a naval race with Britain. Britain responded by making “unlikely friends” with France and Russia. Germany in turn cultivated relations with a near-moribund Austria-Hungary. Macmillan tells this familiar story with panache. A major contribution, however, is her presentation of its subtext, as Europe’s claims to be the world’s most advanced civilization “were being challenged from without and undermined from within.” Exertions for peace were overshadowed by acceptance of war as “a tool that could be used” against enemies made increasingly threatening by alliance systems. The nations’ war plans shared a “deeply rooted faith in the offensive” and a near-irrational belief in the possibility of a short war. Macmillan eloquently shows that “turning out the lights” was not inevitable, but a consequence of years of decisions and reactions: a slow-motion train wreck few wanted but none could avoid. Agent: Christy Fletcher, C. Fletcher & Company LLC.

August 1, 2013
Award-winning academic MacMillan (International History/Oxford Univ.; Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History, 2009, etc.) takes on the origins of World War I. Rather than allocating blame for the war or asking why it came about, the author asks instead, "[W]hy did the long peace not continue?...One way of getting at an answer is to see how Europe's options had narrowed down in the decades before 1914." She begins with the confident Europe celebrated in the Paris Exposition of 1900 and shows how national rivalries gradually eroded the comity of nations to the point where a brilliant civilization chose to tear itself to pieces. Inflexible military planning; "defensive" pacts that appeared offensive to rivals; national fears, honor and prestige; the characters and capabilities of national leaders; consideration of war as a means of suppressing internal divisions; and, finally, "mistakes, muddle or simply poor timing" all played a part in steering Europe from considering a general war unthinkable to considering it inevitable. Not everyone agreed; MacMillan turns periodically, if too briefly, to the peace movements led by Alfred Nobel, Bertha von Suttner and the Socialist International, but in the end, nationalism overwhelmed these altruistic impulses. There is much emphasis on the great men of the time, the bombastic and erratic kaiser and other leaders of the great powers, whose well-described personalities, prejudices and temperaments affected events in a way that is difficult to imagine today. Exhaustive in its coverage of diplomatic maneuvering and the internal political considerations of the various nations, the book includes comprehensive discussions of such motivating issues as Germany's fears of being surrounded, Austria-Hungary's fears of falling apart and Russia's humiliation after losing a war with Japan. The author's presentation is so thorough that it is often easy to lose sight of her theme. While MacMillan's prose is mostly lively, it lacks a narrative flair that could help carry readers through this monumental work.

COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

September 1, 2013
Anytime something turns 100, the commemorations and look-backs are sure to come rolling in. Take WWI, which celebrates the 100th anniversary of its declaration come summer of 2014. Nevertheless, that war, as with most wars, was a long chain of events that culminated in disaster. MacMillan's charting of those events comprises the bulk of this hefty text. She showcases how numerous royals, politicians, industrialists, colonial advocates, and military minds groped in the dark toward a showdown in which each nation's respective valor could be tested. The trouble with a book like this is that everything can be lent a veneer of inevitability, but history rarely works in such a linear manner. But MacMillan, famous for her scholarship on the peace concluding WWI, avoids this trap. She shows, again and again, that events could have run in any number of different directions. What resulted was a blunder on the part of plenty of blood-stained hands all around that was far from inevitable.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

May 1, 2013

This study of events leading up to World War I comes from the author of Paris 1919, which sold over 415,000 copies and won the Duff Cooper, Samuel Johnson, Hessell-Tiltman, and Governor-General's prizes and a Silver Medal for the Arthur Ross Book Award of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2013

The question of the causes of the Great War has occupied historians for decades and promises to continue to intrigue. MacMillan (history, Univ. of Toronto), prize winner for Paris 1919, reviews the dynamic tensions in Europe prior to 1914. She reminds readers that the leaders of several European nations were dealing with such issues as fears of revolution at home and abroad while maneuvering for an advantage in the military sphere. The series of crises in the Balkans may have convinced political and military minds that any impending conflict would be of short duration. So, as MacMillan notes, the war was perceived as one that would have almost a cleansing effect on the European world. It turned out much differently. This book adds to a growing corpus exploring the war's roots, including Michael S. Neiberg's Dance of the Furies: Europe and the Outbreak of World War I, Frank C. Zagare's The Games of July: Explaining the Great War, and William Mulligan's The Origins of the First World War. MacMillan, who edited Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August and The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914 for the Library of America, writes in a style reminiscent of Tuchman. VERDICT This is a first-rate study, necessary for all World War I collections. Highly recommended.--Ed Goedeken, (EG) Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 15, 2013

The question of the causes of the Great War has occupied historians for decades and promises to continue to intrigue. MacMillan (history, Univ. of Toronto), prize winner for Paris 1919, reviews the dynamic tensions in Europe prior to 1914. She reminds readers that the leaders of several European nations were dealing with such issues as fears of revolution at home and abroad while maneuvering for an advantage in the military sphere. The series of crises in the Balkans may have convinced political and military minds that any impending conflict would be of short duration. So, as MacMillan notes, the war was perceived as one that would have almost a cleansing effect on the European world. It turned out much differently. This book adds to a growing corpus exploring the war's roots, including Michael S. Neiberg's Dance of the Furies: Europe and the Outbreak of World War I, Frank C. Zagare's The Games of July: Explaining the Great War, and William Mulligan's The Origins of the First World War. MacMillan, who edited Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August and The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914 for the Library of America, writes in a style reminiscent of Tuchman. VERDICT This is a first-rate study, necessary for all World War I collections. Highly recommended.--Ed Goedeken, (EG) Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2013

A prize-winning historian's exhaustive take on why the war happened when peace might have prevailed. (LJ 10/15/13)

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.