Reviews
"Many historians consider WWI to have been inevitable. Not so, maintains Beatty, a news analyst on NPR's On Point ( Age of Betrayal: The Triumph of Money in America, 18651900 ), in this delightfully contrarian account. If one of any number of events had turned out differently, the war might not have been launched. Had war been delayed a month, for instance, civil war over the bitter Irish Home Rule controversy might have embroiled Britain. Russian leaders agreed that war would provoke revolution, as it had in 1905. Yet in 1914, all mysteriously and disastrously changed their minds. With far less reason, says Beatty, Germany's leaders also feared revolution; many urged a military coup that would have preoccupied the army. Every European belligerent disliked President Wilson's quirky support of Mexican rebels under Pancho Villa (he later reversed himself). This led to Germany's January 1917 Zimmermann telegram (which was intercepted by the British) promising Mexico's dictator U.S. territory in exchange for invading its northern neighbor. Beatty maintains that this, not Germany's announcement of unrestricted submarine warfare, tipped the balance in America in favor of war. Readers may find some arguments more convincing than others, but they will thoroughly enjoy Beatty's thoughtful, often discomforting opinions." -- Publishers Weekly, "Thought-provoking, and often mordantly ironic."-- The New Yorker "Beatty's achievement isn't so much in discovering new material about World War I as it is in taking apart what is known about 1914 and assembling it in a different form. We see, of course, what might have been--but more important, we see, in a different light, what was. It was a calamity."--David Shribman, The Boston Globe "Beatty seeks to navigate the historiography of the first great conflict of the twentieth century away from the 'metaphysical no-man's land of historical inevitability' and back into the 'trenches of empiricism.'"-- The New Statesman "Beatty... captures the sweep of the events that gripped the world and illuminates the epic arrogance, the paranoia, the pettiness and the myopic self-serving views of the European heads of state who had laid the cornerstone of a conflict that would lead to the deaths of millions from Moscow to Maine."--Paul Collins, Nashua Telegraph "Beatty has a great eye for the vivid details that reveal character...'Downton Abbey' notwithstanding, the prewar era really does seem like a lost time. Beatty manages to shed some light on that receding era."--Michael Hill, The Associated Press " THE LOST HISTORY OF 1914 brings alive much of the official world of a century ago."--Bruce Ramsey, Seattle Times "Bold stuff...[An] exuberant and bulging rag-bag of counter-factual history that challenges the 'cult of inevitability' that Europe's war-leaders were retrospectively so eager to embrace."--David Crane, The Spectator "[A] startling study of what Woodrow Wilson called 'an injury to civilization.'"--Eve Ottenberg, In These Times "Spritely, captivating…[Beatty's book] delivers his signature storyteller's insights. Hardly any writer working today can amass such an enormous array of information and shape it all so effortlessly into paragraph after compelling paragraph. The centennial of World War I is bound to produce a tsunami of verbiage and, if we're lucky, some genuinely first-rate stuff. THE LOST HISTORY OF 1914… steals a march on all of them. Highly recommended."--Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Monthly " THE LOST HISTORY OF 1914 will leave its mark on how we think about World War I and perhaps, beyond that, on how we think about history and history in the making."--Harvey Blume, The Arts Fuse, "Thought-provoking, and often mordantly ironic." -- The New Yorker "Beatty's achievement isn't so much in discovering new material about World War I as it is in taking apart what is known about 1914 and assembling it in a different form. We see, of course, what might have been--but more important, we see, in a different light, what was. It was a calamity." -- David Shribman, The Boston Globe "Beatty seeks to navigate the historiography of the first great conflict of the twentieth century away from the 'metaphysical no-man's land of historical inevitability' and back into the 'trenches of empiricism.'" -- The New Statesman "Beatty... captures the sweep of the events that gripped the world and illuminates the epic arrogance, the paranoia, the pettiness and the myopic self-serving views of the European heads of state who had laid the cornerstone of a conflict that would lead to the deaths of millions from Moscow to Maine." -- Paul Collins, Nashua Telegraph "Beatty has a great eye for the vivid details that reveal character...'Downton Abbey' notwithstanding, the prewar era really does seem like a lost time. Beatty manages to shed some light on that receding era." -- Michael Hill, The Associated Press " THE LOST HISTORY OF 1914 brings alive much of the official world of a century ago." -- Bruce Ramsey, Seattle Times "Bold stuff...[An] exuberant and bulging rag-bag of counter-factual history that challenges the 'cult of inevitability' that Europe's war-leaders were retrospectively so eager to embrace." -- David Crane, The Spectator "[A] startling study of what Woodrow Wilson called 'an injury to civilization.'" -- Eve Ottenberg, In These Times "Spritely, captivating...[Beatty's book] delivers his signature storyteller's insights. Hardly any writer working today can amass such an enormous array of information and shape it all so effortlessly into paragraph after compelling paragraph. The centennial of World War I is bound to produce a tsunami of verbiage - and, if we're lucky, some genuinely first-rate stuff. THE LOST HISTORY OF 1914... steals a march on all of them. Highly recommended." -- Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Monthly " THE LOST HISTORY OF 1914 will leave its mark on how we think about World War I and perhaps, beyond that, on how we think about history and history in the making." -- Harvey Blume, The Arts Fuse, Beatty seeks to navigate the historiography of the first great conflict of the twentieth century away from the 'metaphysical no-man's land of historical inevitability' and back into the 'trenches of empiricism.', Beatty has a great eye for the vivid details that reveal character...'Downton Abbey' notwithstanding, the prewar era really does seem like a lost time. Beatty manages to shed some light on that receding era., Beatty... captures the sweep of the events that gripped the world and illuminates the epic arrogance, the paranoia, the pettiness and the myopic self-serving views of the European heads of state who had laid the cornerstone of a conflict that would lead to the deaths of millions from Moscow to Maine., THE LOST HISTORY OF 1914 will leave its mark on how we think about World War I and perhaps, beyond that, on how we think about history and history in the making., Spritely, captivating...[Beatty's book] delivers his signature storyteller's insights. Hardly any writer working today can amass such an enormous array of information and shape it all so effortlessly into paragraph after compelling paragraph. The centennial of World War I is bound to produce a tsunami of verbiage - and, if we're lucky, some genuinely first-rate stuff. THE LOST HISTORY OF 1914... steals a march on all of them. Highly recommended., Bold stuff...[An] exuberant and bulging rag-bag of counter-factual history that challenges the 'cult of inevitability' that Europe's war-leaders were retrospectively so eager to embrace., Beatty's achievement isn't so much in discovering new material about World War I as it is in taking apart what is known about 1914 and assembling it in a different form. We see, of course, what might have been--but more important, we see, in a different light, what was. It was a calamity.
