Can anyone recommend a lucid and not too scholarly book about the causes of the

Question:While "The Guns of August" is an enjoyable read, it risks giving you an inaccurate perspective. Tuchman's work hit bookshelves in 1962 and reached a mass audience, depicting the major players as unwittingly falling into war through entangling alliances.
According to Tuchman, "War pressed against every frontier. Suddenly dismayed, governments struggled and twisted to fend it off. It was no use."
While Tuchman's book was hailed in her home country (the United States), at nearly the same time in Germany the opposite was happening to a fellow German historian.

Fritz Fischer published "Germany's Aims in the First World War" in 1961, and it was met with horror by the German people. Fischer made heavy use of never before seen archives that the Allied powers had uncovered after invading Germany in 1945. What Fischer found was astonishing. Germany was responsible for guiding the world to war in 1914. The ultimatum to Serbia was engineered by Germany with the implicit belief that the Serbs would never agree to it and thereby legitimize an Austrian invasion; an invasion that would trigger Russian mobilization, which would finally allow the Germans to go to war in fulfillment of their alliance obligation to Austria-Hungary. And this was just the catalyst that the Germans had been awaiting for nearly a decade.

Fischer's works are written to a scholarly audience, and are additionally difficult as they are translations. Being a German historian, he makes exhausting use of sources and the pages are filled with superscripts and footnotes.

However, for a much more lucid read from an historian that acknowledges Fischer's contribution, read David Fromkin's "Europe's Last Summer."

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: While "The Guns of August" is an enjoyable read, it risks giving you an inaccurate perspective. Tuchman's work hit bookshelves in 1962 and reached a mass audience, depicting the major players as unwittingly falling into war through entangling alliances.
According to Tuchman, "War pressed against every frontier. Suddenly dismayed, governments struggled and twisted to fend it off. It was no use."
While Tuchman's book was hailed in her home country (the United States), at nearly the same time in Germany the opposite was happening to a fellow German historian.

Fritz Fischer published "Germany's Aims in the First World War" in 1961, and it was met with horror by the German people. Fischer made heavy use of never before seen archives that the Allied powers had uncovered after invading Germany in 1945. What Fischer found was astonishing. Germany was responsible for guiding the world to war in 1914. The ultimatum to Serbia was engineered by Germany with the implicit belief that the Serbs would never agree to it and thereby legitimize an Austrian invasion; an invasion that would trigger Russian mobilization, which would finally allow the Germans to go to war in fulfillment of their alliance obligation to Austria-Hungary. And this was just the catalyst that the Germans had been awaiting for nearly a decade.

Fischer's works are written to a scholarly audience, and are additionally difficult as they are translations. Being a German historian, he makes exhausting use of sources and the pages are filled with superscripts and footnotes.

However, for a much more lucid read from an historian that acknowledges Fischer's contribution, read David Fromkin's "Europe's Last Summer."

The Swordbearers by Corelli Bennet. And
'The Guns of August' by Barbara Tuchman.

Peace... // /// /// pooo oo ooo pppp ooo

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* Tuchman, Barbara. The Guns of August, tells of the opening diplomatic and military manoeuvres
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Try "The Guns of August" by Barbara Tuchman.

The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman would be my recommendation. It is readable, well-researched, and thoroughly explains the politics of the time. (As a historian, I wish it were required reading in all schools!)