Events Leading to World War I Book

An overview of the causes of World War I.

Greg M. Romaneck - Children's Literature

While World War Two claimed five times as many lives, it can be argued that the First World War more deeply scarred the collective European psyche. Between 1914 and 1918 over ten million soldiers perished in the horrible conditions of trench life. Images of World War I encompassed a world of mud, rats, rotting corpses, and suffering on a virtually unimaginable scale. How could the industrialized nations of the world fall to such a depth of despair? In Events Leading to World War I, John Hamilton outlines the chain of events that led the major European powers to and beyond the brink of an abyss they could not have predicted. Starting with the alliance system that spawned the conditions necessary for so broad a war, Hamilton does an excellent job of telling this tragic story. Culminating in the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne by a Serbian nationalist, the path that led to World War I will both fascinate and repel modern readers. In the end, as John Hamilton points out in this well written and illustrated chapter in the broader "World War I" series, the war came. Sadly, it appears that World War I was a nearly inevitable event that came about through the contrast between mankind's advancement and international blindness. In this concise work readers will come to better understand this sad reality and, hopefully, apply what they learn to more contemporary events. 2004, ABDO & Daughters, Ages 9 to 14.