"Catastrophe 1914: Europe goes to War," Sir Max Hastings, The University of Kansas

Sir Max Hastings is a celebrated journalist, broadcaster, and author of twelve books on military history, including Bomber Command (1979), Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy (1984), and Inferno: The World at War, 1939-45 (2011). He now writes regularly for the Daily Mail and Financial Times, of which he is a contributing editor and reviews books for the Sunday Times and New York Review of Books. Hastings’ new book, Catastrophe 1914, recreates this dramatic year of the first World War, from the diplomatic crisis to the fighting in Belgium and France on the western front, and Serbia and Galicia to the east. He gives vivid accounts of the battles and frank assessments of generals and political leaders, and shows why it was inevitable that the first war among modern industrial nations could not produce a decisive victory, resulting in a war of attrition.