100 Years Since the War to End All Wars

I confess: One of my favorite things to do in the evening is to prepare dinner while listening to NPR and drinking wine (wild life of the librarian, I know). On Monday, I had the pleasure of hearing Tom Ashbrook's On Point coverage of the 100th anniversary of the start of WWI.

I select books for the American History section of ICPL's collection, and Ashbrook's guests reflect some of the great research being published today about WWI. I'm happy to share that we have these new books in the collection. Check them out:

Margaret MacMillan's The war that ended peace : the road to 1914

Presents a narrative portrait of Europe in the years leading up to World War I that illuminates the political, cultural, and economic factors and contributing personalities that shaped major events.

Sean McMeekin's July 1914 : countdown to war

From Goodreads: As acclaimed historian Sean McMeekin reveals in July 1914, World War I might have been avoided entirely had it not been for a small group of statesmen who, in the month after the assassination, plotted to use Ferdinand’s murder as the trigger for a long-awaited showdown in Europe. The primary culprits, moreover, have long escaped blame. While most accounts of the war’s outbreak place the bulk of responsibility on German and Austro-Hungarian militarism, McMeekin draws on surprising new evidence from archives across Europe to show that the worst offenders were actually to be found in Russia and France, whose belligerence and duplicity ensured that war was inevitable.

Other new books about the start of WWI

Archduke Franz Ferdinand lives! : a world without World War I by Richard Ned Lebow

The assassination of the archduke : Sarajevo 1914 and the romance that changed the world by Greg King and Sue Woolmans

Catastrophe 1914 : Europe goes to war by Max Hastings

A mad catastrophe : the outbreak of World War I and the collapse of the Habsburg Empire by Geoffrey Wawro

The sleepwalkers : how Europe went to war in 1914 by Christopher Clark

Happy history hunting!