Product Description: With so much at stake and so much already lost, why did World War I end with a whimper—an arrangement between two weary opponents to suspend hostilities? After more than four years of desperate fighting, with victories sometimes measured in feet and inches, why did the Allies reject the option of advancing into Germany in 1918 and taking Berlin? Most histories of the Great War focus on the avoidability of its beginning...read more

Product Description: This new book provides a synthesis of the latest historical research into why in 1914 a Balkan conflict escalated into a general European war. It focuses on the decision-making of each Power during the July-August crisis, and analyses the roles of domestic politics, economics, cultural factors, militarism, imperialism, and the international political system...read more

Product Description: The horrors of the First World War--trench warfare, human tragedy, and military blunders--are well known, yet the role of politicians and diplomats has strangely been neglected. Redressing this imbalance, David Stevenson focusses on the politics of the war: why the governments of the day resorted to violence in pursuit of their political objectives, why conflict expanded to a global level, the significance of the Russian Revolution, why it was impossible to achieve compromise, and why the eventual peace settlement took the troubled form that it did...read more