This is the pacy, sensitive and formidably argued history of the causes of the F
irst World War, from acclaimed historian and author Christopher Clark. This book
was the winner of the Financial Times Books of the Year 2014. It was a winners
of Sunday Times and Independent Books of the Year 2012.
This book was also th
e winner of the Los Angeles Times History Book Prize 2014. The moments that it t
ook Gavrilo Princip to step forward to the stalled car and shoot dead Franz Ferd
inand and his wife were perhaps the most fateful of the modern era. An act of te
rrorism of staggering efficiency, it fulfilled its every aim: it would liberate
Bosnia from Habsburg rule and it created a powerful new Serbia, but it also brou
ght down four great empires, killed millions of men and destroyed a civilization
.
