Synopses & Reviews
In The Lost History of 1914, Jack Beatty offers a highly original view of World War I, testing against fresh evidence the long-dominant assumption that it was inevitable. "Most books set in 1914 map the path leading to war," Beatty writes, "This one maps the multiple paths that led away from it." Reexamining the standard account of the war's outbreak, Beatty presents the assassination of Archduke Ferninand not as the catalyst of a war that would have broken out in any event over some other crisis, but rather as its "all-but-unique precipitant."
Chronicling largely forgotten events faced by each of the belligerent countries in the months before the war started, Beatty shows how any one of them—a possible military coup in Germany; an imminent civil war in Britain; the murder trial of the wife of the likely next premier of France, who sought détente with Germanymight have derailed the war or brought it to a different end. In Beatty's hands, these stories open up into epiphanies of national character and offer dramatic portraits of the year's major actors—Kaiser Wilhelm, Tsar Nicholas II, Woodrow Wilson, Winston Churchill, Emperor Francis Joseph, along with forgotten or overlooked characters such as Pancho Villa, Rasputin, and Herbert Hoover.
Beatty's deeply insightful book—as elegantly written as it is thought-provoking and probing—illuminates a lost world about to blow itself up in what George Kennan called "the great seminal catastrophe of the twentieth century." It also arms readers against invocations of historical inevitability in today's world.
Review
"Many historians consider WWI to have been inevitable. Not so, maintains Beatty, a news analyst on NPRs On Point (Age of Betrayal: The Triumph of Money in America, 1865-1900), 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, Germanys leaders also feared revolution; many urged a military coup that would have preoccupied the army. Every European belligerent disliked President Wilsons quirky support of Mexican rebels under Pancho Villa (he later reversed himself). This led to Germanys January 1917 Zimmermann telegram (which was intercepted by the British) promising Mexicos dictator U.S. territory in exchange for invading its northern neighbor. Beatty maintains that this, not Germanys 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 Beattys thoughtful, often discomforting opinions." --Publishers Weekly
Review
"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…[Beattys book] delivers his signature storytellers 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 were 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
Review
"[A] rich, textural context that allows us to see the war, and indeed all of 1914, fresh . . . Beatty's book is an important contribution to our comprehension of a world bathed in misfortune and headed toward the senseless slaughter of nearly 20 million people. [His] achievement . . . is in taking apart what is known about 1914 and assembling it in different form. We see, of course, what might have been—but, more important, we see, in different light, what was. It was a calamity." —
Boston Globe"Thought-provoking." —New Yorker
"The Lost History of 1914 brings alive much of the official world of a century ago." —Seattle Times
"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." —The Associated Press
Synopsis
Hundreds of books have been written about World War I, dozens of which are about the causes of the Great War. Jack Beatty-whose father fought in the war, giving him a very personal connection to it-has written a highly original chronicle of events in 1914 in each of the major countries involved, showing clearly that, far from being inevitable as so many historians have argued, the conflict that consumed so many lives was highly accidental in nature. "My book draws a new map, uncovering paths to peace long buried under the avalanche of war," Beatty writes. "I hope readers will come away thinking that nothing was inevitable about what George Kennan later called 'the great seminal catastrophe of the twentieth century.' I mean "lost history" in two senses. "Lost" as in "forgotten," and "lost" as in "did not win."
In Germany, Austria-Hungary, France, England, Mexico, America, and other participant countries, Beatty examines pivotal events ignored or overlooked by most historians, whose accidental outcomes bore heavily on the outbreak of the war. His original perspective sheds new light on a defining event in the twentieth century.
Synopsis
Now in paperback, a brilliant history of the year it began—"a year forever memorable," in Woodrow Wilson's words—that examines the war and its causes through new eyes.
About the Author
Jack Beatty grew up listening to his father's memories of serving in WWI as a sailor on a ship torpedoed in the Bay of Biscay. He is a news analyst for "On Point," the public affairs program on National Public Radio, and the author of The Rascal King: The Life and Times of James Michael Curley, Colossus: How the Corporation Changed America, and Age of Betrayal: The Triumph of Money in America, 1865-1900. He lives in New Hampshire.