The Origins of the First World War Reconsidered

This book brings together the views of internationally acclaimed scholars who have synthesized debates regarding the First World War's origins, and it will certainly encourage readers to ‘reconsider’ their ideas regarding this controversial subject.

Since 2014, there have been numerous works dedicated to the war's origins, including studies of the July Crisis, new biographies of politicians and diplomats, and reassessments of pre-war crises, imperial rivalries, nationalist aspirations, militarism and popular culture. In this book, leading experts on aspects of the road that led to war in 1914 consider the contribution to our understanding made by all this new or renewed attention. The role of each of the Great Powers is examined, as well as underlying forces such as nationalism, militarism, the armaments race and the alliance system, and what impact they had on these origins. What did ‘mobilization’ mean? And what role did domestic politics and popular reactions to the assassination at Sarajevo play? Over three sections, this volume analyses the differing international relationships of the various powers, the tensions between them and the underlying bigger forces at play.

Gordon Martel is Adjunct Professor at the University of Victoria and Emeritus Professor at the University of Northern British Columbia. He was one of three founding editors of The International History Review and is the editor of the four-volume Encyclopedia of Diplomacy. He specializes in European diplomacy, 1900–1945 with particular attention to the origins and crises leading to the First and Second World Wars. His publications include The Month That Changed the World: July 1914 and, co-authored with the late James Joll, The Origins of the First World War (fourth edition, Routledge).