August Firestorm

A war brought the 19th century, in the historical sense, to an end and marked the beginning of the modern world. As a turning point in history, “the deadlock of that terrible August determined the course of the war that followed and the terms on which peace was made. It also set in motion the developments between the two world wars and the outbreak of the Second World War.” Yet on the eve of the conflict, most European politicians, intellectuals, and business leaders had no idea they stood just inches away from an immense crisis.

In this Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, Barbara Tuchman vividly recreates the historical scenes, paints a wealth of detail, and draws on solid historical evidence to portray the crisis as it developed and erupted in August 1914, along with the battles of the war's early days. She asks what led emperors, politicians, and generals into a world war that no one wanted and that most people thought could never happen. Not long after the book was published, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world close to nuclear war. Then U.S. President John F. Kennedy drew lessons from the book, helping the United States and the Soviet Union resolve the crisis peacefully. Those lessons remain profoundly relevant to the world today.

With her masterful storytelling, Barbara Tuchman immerses readers in the people and events of the time, making them forget that they already know how it ends and filling the story with suspense. Her portraits of individuals are especially vivid. She calmly avoids moral judgments and blame, using deeply human prose to show how flawed people led the world toward an ending worthy of a Greek tragedy.