{"product_id":"a-world-undone-isbn-9780553382402","title":"A World Undone","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES \u003c\/i\u003eBESTSELLER • Drawing on exhaustive research, this “masterful narrative history” (\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e) details how World War I reduced Europe’s mightiest empires to rubble, killed twenty million people, and cracked the foundations of our modern world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Thundering, magnificent . . . [\u003ci\u003eA World Undone\u003c\/i\u003e] is a book of true greatness that prompts moments of sheer joy and pleasure. . . . It will earn generations of admirers.”\u003ci\u003e—The Washington Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eOn a summer day in 1914, a nineteen-year-old Serbian nationalist gunned down Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. While the world slumbered, monumental forces were shaken. In less than a month, a combination of ambition, deceit, fear, jealousy, missed opportunities, and miscalculation sent Austro-Hungarian troops marching into Serbia, German troops streaming toward Paris, and a vast Russian army into war, with England as its ally. As crowds cheered their armies on, no one could guess what lay ahead in the First World War: four long years of slaughter, physical and moral exhaustion, and the near collapse of a civilization that until 1914 had dominated the globe.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFilled with stunning insight and unforgettable scenes of courage, tragedy, and outrage, \u003ci\u003eA World Undone \u003c\/i\u003eis an extraordinary portrait of human folly and bravery on the grandest scale. G. J. Meyer breathes life into the past, challenging conventional wisdom as he reexamines some of the greatest misconceptions about the war—and offers a vision of history as we have never seen it before.\"\u003cb\u003eA World Undone\u003c\/b\u003e is an original and very readable account of one of the most significant and often misunderstood events of the last century. With an historians eye for clear headed analysis and a storytellers talent for detail and narrative, G.J Meyer presents a compelling account of the blunders that produced the world's first \"great war\" and set the stage for many of the tragic events that followed.\" —Steve Gillon, Resident Historian, \u003ci\u003eThe History Channel\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"This is one of those books where you read every page.... Meyer organizes his book chronologically, and accompanies each chapter with a short background essay.... [\u003cb\u003eA World Undone\u003c\/b\u003e] has the very best qualities for this kind of comprehensive approach: a gift for compression and an eye for the telling detail.\" —\u003ci\u003eMilwaukee Journal Sentinel\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A comprehensive history aimed at the general reader....You finish this book feeling you’ve learned everything anyone reasonably needs to know about The Great War.” —\u003ci\u003ePittsburgh Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e-\u003ci\u003eReview\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Meyer breathes life into the human story within the Great War. He provides in-depth profiles of many of the political and military leaders of that era, and explains why they were so important....This is a literary vision of WWI that few of us have ever encountered. Simply put, this is historical reporting at its best.” —\u003ci\u003eSmoky Mountain Sentinel\u003c\/i\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Thundering, magnificent...this is a book of true greatness that prompts moments of sheer joy and pleasure. Researched to last possible dot...It will earn generations of admirers.” —\u003ci\u003eWashington Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Especially suited for the interested American reader…. Meyer's sketches of the British Cabinet, the Russian Empire, the aging Austro-Hungarian Empire, the leaders of Prussia with their newly minted swagger, are lifelike and plausible. His account of the tragic folly of Gallipoli is masterful…. It should go without saying that in 2006 … [\u003cb\u003eA World Undone\u003c\/b\u003e] has an instructive value that can scarely be measured.\"—\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Accomplished with brio... [Meyer] blends 'foreground, background, and sidelights' to highlight the complex interactions of apparently unconnected events behind the four-year catastrophic war that destroyed a world and defined a century.\"—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly, \u003c\/i\u003estarred review\u003cb\u003eG. J. Meyer\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of three popular histories: \u003ci\u003eA World Undone: The Story of the Great War; The Tudors: The Complete Story of England’s Most Notorious Dynasty;\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Borgias: The Hidden History.\u003c\/i\u003e Meyer received a Nieman Fellowship in Journalism from Harvard University. He earned an M.A. from the University of Minnesota, where he was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, and has taught writing and literature at colleges in Des Moines, St. Louis, and New York. He now lives in Wiltshire, England.Chapter 1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     \u003cbr\u003eJune 28:  \u003cbr\u003eThe Black Hand Descends\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     \u003cbr\u003e\"It's nothing. It's nothing.\"  \u003cbr\u003e--Archduke Franz Ferdinand\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     \u003cbr\u003eThirty-four long, sweet summer days separated the morning of June 28, when  the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire was shot to death, from the evening  of August 1, when Russia's foreign minister and Germany's ambassador to  Russia fell weeping into each other's arms and what is rightly called the  Great War began.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    On the morning when the drama opened, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was making an  official visit to the city of Sarajevo in the province of Bosnia, at the  southernmost tip of the Austro-Hungarian domains. He was a big, beefy man, a  career soldier whose intelligence and strong will usually lay concealed  behind blunt, impassive features and eyes that, at least in his photographs,  often seemed cold and strangely empty. He was also the eldest nephew of the  Hapsburg emperor Franz Joseph and therefore--the emperor's only son having  committed suicide--heir to the imperial crown. He had come to Bosnia in his  capacity as inspector general of the Austro-Hungarian armies, to observe the  summer military exercises, and he had brought his wife, Sophie, with him.  The two would be observing their fourteenth wedding anniversary later in the  week, and Franz Ferdinand was using this visit to put Sophie at the center  of things, to give her a little of the recognition she was usually denied.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Back in the Hapsburg capital of Vienna, Sophie was, for the wife of a  prospective emperor, improbably close to being a nonperson. At the turn of  the century the emperor had forbidden Franz Ferdinand to marry her. She was  not of royal lineage, was in fact a mere countess, the daughter of a noble  but impoverished Czech family. As a young woman, she had been reduced by  financial need to accepting employment as lady-in-waiting to an Austrian  archduchess who entertained hopes of marrying her own daughter to Franz  Ferdinand. All these things made Sophie, according to the rigid protocols of  the Hapsburg court, unworthy to be an emperor's consort or a progenitor of  future rulers. The accidental discovery that she and Franz Ferdinand were  conducting a secret if chaste romance--that he had been regularly visiting  the archduchess's palace not to court her daughter but to see a lowly and  thirtyish member of the household staff--sparked outrage, and Sophie had to  leave her post. But Franz Ferdinand continued to pursue her. In his youth he  had had a long struggle with tuberculosis, and perhaps his survival had left  him determined to live his private life on his own terms. Uninterested in  any of the young women who possessed the credentials to become his bride, he  had remained single into his late thirties. The last two years of his  bachelorhood turned into a battle of wills with his uncle the emperor over  the subject of Sophie Chotek.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Franz Joseph finally tired of the deadlock and gave his consent. What he  consented to, however, was a morganatic marriage, one that would exclude  Sophie's descendants from the succession. And so on June 28, 1900, fourteen  years to the day before his visit to Sarajevo, Franz Ferdinand appeared as  ordered in the Hapsburg monarchy's Secret Council Chamber. In the presence  of the emperor, the Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna, the Primate of Hungary,  all the government's principal ministers, and all the other Hapsburg  archdukes, he solemnly renounced the Austro-Hungarian throne on behalf of  any children that he and Sophie might have and any descendants of those  children. (Sophie was thirty-two, which in those days made her an all but  hopeless spinster.) When the wedding took place three days later, only Franz  Ferdinand's mother and sister, out of the whole huge Hapsburg family,  attended. Even Franz Ferdinand's brothers, the eldest of whom was a  notorious libertine, self-righteously stayed away. The marriage turned out  to be a happy one all the same, in short order producing a daughter and two  sons whom the usually stiff Franz Ferdinand loved so unreservedly that he  would play with them on the floor in the presence of astonished visitors.  But at court Sophie was relentlessly snubbed. She was not permitted to ride  with her husband in royal processions or to sit near him at state dinners.  She could not even join him in his box at the opera. When he, as heir, led  the procession at court balls, she was kept far back, behind the lowest  ranking of the truly royal ladies.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But here in Bosnia, a turbulent border province, the rules of Vienna could  be set aside. Here in Sarajevo, Franz Ferdinand and Sophie could appear  together in public as royal husband and wife. It was a rare experience, and  they were enjoying it as much as any pair of small-town shopkeepers on their  first vacation in years. They were staying in the nearby seaside resort town  of Bad Ilidz, and on Saturday they had browsed the local antique markets.  They had started Sunday with mass in an improvised chapel at their hotel,  after which the archduke sent a telegram to the children, Sophie, Max, and  Ernst. Momma and Poppa were well, the wire said. Momma and Poppa were  looking forward to getting home on Tuesday.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    And now on this brilliant morning, the air crisp and clear after a week of  rain and chill, the streets lined with people some of whom cheered and some  of whom merely looked on in silence, Sophie was seated beside the archduke  in an open car as they rode toward the town hall. They looked less imperial  than like characters out of a comic opera: an overweight middle-aged pair,  Franz Ferdinand faintly ridiculous in an ornate military headpiece and a  field marshal's tunic that stretched too tight across his ample torso,  Sophie's plump face smiling cheerily under a broad bonnet and the dainty  parasol that, even in the moving car, she held above her head.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Suddenly there was a loud crack: the sound, as police investigators would  later determine, of the percussion cap on a Serbian-made pocket bomb being  struck against a lamppost. A small dark object was seen flying through the  air: the bomb, thrown by someone in the crowd. It was on target, but the  driver of the royal car saw it coming and accelerated, so that it fell  inches behind the archduke and his wife. Franz Ferdinand too saw it, swung  at it with his arm, and deflected it farther to the rear. It exploded with a  shattering noise as the car sped off, damaging the next vehicle in the  procession and injuring several people. A tiny fragment of shrapnel grazed  Sophie's neck.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    In the crowds along the route of the motorcade that day were six young men  who had traveled to Sarajevo for the purpose of killing the archduke. Five  of them, including the one who had thrown the bomb, were Bosnian Serb  teenagers--youths born and raised in Bosnia but of Serbian descent. All five  were sick with tuberculosis, curiously enough, and all were members of Young  Bosnia, a radical patriotic organization linked to and supported by a deeply  secret Serb nationalist group formally called Union or Death but known to  its members as the Black Hand. Though the Black Hand had been active for  years, Austria-Hungary's intelligence services still knew nothing of its  existence. Its purpose was the expansion of the Kingdom of Serbia, a  smallish and ambitious young country adjacent to Bosnia, so that all the  Serbs of the Balkans could be united. Its ultimate goal was the creation of  a Greater Serbia that would include Bosnia, and its members were prepared to  use terrorism to achieve that goal. The assassins of June 28 had been  assembled just across the border in the Serbian capital of Belgrade, armed  with bombs and Belgian revolvers, and slipped into Sarajevo well in advance  of the archduke's arrival.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    June 28, as it happened, was an awkward day for a Hapsburg to be visiting  Bosnia. It was St. Vitus Day, which for more than five hundred years had  been an occasion of mourning for the Serbs. On St. Vitus Day in 1389 a  Serbian kingdom that had flourished through the Middle Ages was defeated by  the Ottoman Turks at the Battle of Kosovo, on the so-called Field of  Blackbirds. The Serb army was not merely vanquished but slaughtered. Soon  afterward the kingdom ceased to exist. The Serbs became subjects--slaves,  really--of their savagely harsh Turkish conquerors. Kosovo was avenged in  1912, when the Turks were driven out of the Balkans at last, but it would  never be forgotten--certainly not while so many Serbs were still under alien  rule. There could be no better day than this one to strike a blow against  the oppressors--which now meant a blow against the Hapsburgs, the Turks  being gone from the scene.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Between the throwing of the bomb and the motorcade's arrival at the town  hall, the car carrying Franz Ferdinand and Sophie drove past three more  members of the gang. They were armed but did nothing. Later two of them,  after being arrested, made excuses for their failure to act. The third,  probably the most truthful, said he had lost his nerve.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    After a standard ceremonial welcome--the mayor, absurdly, didn't deviate  from a script declaring that everyone in Sarajevo honored the archduke and  was delighted by this visit--Franz Ferdinand announced a change in his  itinerary. He insisted on going to the hospital where the people injured by  the bomb had been taken. It was the right Hapsburg gesture, a demonstration  of concern for servants of the crown. Franz Ferdinand asked Sophie to stay  behind, out of any possible danger. She refused, saying that her place was  with him. This did not seem reckless. The military governor of Bosnia, who  was riding in the same car with the couple that morning, had already  declared his confidence that there would be no further trouble. If he knew  anything about the Serb fanatics, he said, it was that they were capable of  only one assassination attempt per day.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The motorcade set out once again. The route originally planned by the  authorities was still cleared of traffic, and the lead driver mistakenly  took it rather than the road to the hospital. The others followed. They  passed still another would-be assassin, but he too did nothing. When the  governor, seated in front of Franz Ferdinand and Sophie, discovered that  they were going the wrong way, he ordered their driver to stop. The driver  brought the car to a halt, shifted gears, and prepared to turn around. By a  coincidence that has reverberated down the decades, he had stopped less than  five feet from Gavrilo Princip, nineteen years old, the one remaining member  of the assassination gang and its leader. Princip pulled out his revolver,  pointed it at the stopped car, and fired twice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Husband and wife remained upright and calm in their seats. The governor,  seeing no signs of injury and thinking that they must have escaped harm,  shouted again at the driver, telling him to turn around.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Suddenly a thin stream of blood came spurting out of Franz Ferdinand's  mouth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"For heaven's sake!\" cried Sophie. \"What's happened to you?\" Then she  slumped over, her head falling between her husband's knees. The military  governor thought she had fainted, but somehow the archduke knew better.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Sophie dear, Sophie dear, don't die!\" he called. \"Stay alive for our  children!\" Other members of the party surrounded him, struggling to open his  tunic to see where he had been shot. \"It's nothing,\" he told them weakly.  \"It's nothing.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Gavrilo Princip meanwhile tried to shoot himself in the head but was stopped  by a member of the crowd. In the struggle that followed, he managed to  swallow his vial of the cyanide that all the members of the gang had been  given. The cyanide was old: it would make him vomit but not kill him. He was  quickly captured.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Within minutes Franz Ferdinand and Sophie were both dead. (Princip, in  prison, would express regret at Sophie's death, which he had not intended;  the bullet that killed her had passed through the door of the car before  striking her in the groin and severing an artery.) The news caused a  sensation, of course, but there was little sense of crisis. In Vienna the  eighty-three-year-old emperor, Franz Joseph, seemed almost grateful when he  heard. He had long regarded Franz Ferdinand as a nuisance, not only because  of the marriage problem but also because of the archduke's unpleasantly  advanced ideas. (He had even wanted, ironically, to give the Hapsburgs'  Slavic subjects, the Bosnian Serbs included, a voice in the governance of  the empire.) Apparently Franz Joseph believed at first that the Sarajevo  murders had simplified things, had even put them right. \"A higher power,\"  his private secretary would remember him saying, \"has re-established the  order which I, alas, could not preserve.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II, when he learned of the assassination, ended his  sailing vacation off the coast of Norway and headed for home. He did so more  because he and the archduke had been friends than because he foresaw an  emergency; he and his wife had been guests at Franz Ferdinand and Sophie's  country estate just weeks before.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    From his royal yacht the Standart, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia declared three  weeks of mourning in honor of the slain archduke. Beyond that he showed  little interest; he had other things on his mind. His ten-year-old only son  had a few days earlier twisted his ankle in jumping aboard the Standart for  a family cruise in the Gulf of Finland. The injury activated the hemophilia  that the boy had inherited from his mother, who in turn had inherited it  from her grandmother, Queen Victoria of England. By June 28 he was in  intense pain from internal bleeding. His parents, not for the first time and  not for the last, feared for his survival.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The murders aroused little interest in Britain and France. Both countries  were focused on other stories, London on a crisis over Ireland, Paris on a  sensational murder trial that combined sex with political scandal. And  assassinations were not unusual in those days. In the two decades before  1914, presidents of the United States, France, Mexico, Guatemala, Uruguay,  and the Dominican Republic had been murdered. So had prime ministers of  Russia, Spain, Greece, Bulgaria, Persia, and Egypt, and kings, queens, and  empresses of Austria, Italy, Serbia, Portugal, and Greece. People had grown  accustomed to such things and to expecting that their consequences would not  be terribly serious.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Across the Atlantic in the United States, yet another killing of people no  one had ever heard of in a place no one had ever heard of could hardly have  seemed less important. President Woodrow Wilson had only somewhat more  interest in European affairs than most of his fellow citizens, though he was  inclined to believe that he might be the man to enlighten the Old World and  save it from its foolish ways. During the summer his personal emissary, a  Texan who styled himself \"Colonel\" Edward House despite never having served  in any military capacity, spent two months visiting the capitals of the  great powers and conferring with some of their most important men. \"My  purpose,\" House confided to his diary, perhaps somewhat smugly, \"was to  plant the seeds of peace.\" What he found, he reported to Wilson, was  \"militarism run stark mad. Unless someone acting for you [it is not  difficult to guess who he thought that someone might be] can bring about a  different understanding, there is some day to be an awful cataclysm.\"Author of The World Remade New York Times bestseller","brand":"Bantam","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302407819493,"sku":"NP9780553382402","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780553382402.jpg?v=1767720935","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/a-world-undone-isbn-9780553382402","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}