1913 - The World Before the Great War

Author(s): Charles Emmerson

History

Forever in the shadow of the war which followed, 1913 is usually seen as little more than the antechamber to apocalypse. Our perspectives narrowed by hindsight, the world of that year is reduced to its most frivolous features - last summers in grand aristocratic residences, a flurry of extravagant social engagements - or its most destructive ones: the unresolved rivalries of the great European powers, the anxieties of a period of accelerated change, the social fear of revolution, the violence in the Balkans. Our images of the times are too often dominated by the faded pastels of upper-class indulgence or by the unmitigated blackness of a world rushing headlong into the abyss of an inevitable war. 1913: The World before the Great War proposes a strikingly different portrait, returning the world in that year to its contemporary freshness, its future still undecided, its outlook still open.
Told through the stories of twenty-three cities - Europe's capitals at the height of their global reach, the emerging metropolises of America, the imperial cities of Asia and Africa, the boomtowns of Australia and the Americas - Charles Emmerson presents a panoramic view of a world crackling with possibilities, from St Petersburg to Shanghai and from Los Angeles to Jerusalem. What emerges is a rich and complex world, more familiar than we expect, connected as never before, on the threshold of events which would change the course of global history.

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A portrait of a world on the precipice of war - and the brink of globalisation.

"If Downton Abbey still colours your impression of what Britain was like on the cusp of the First World War, 1913 could be a useful corrective" -- David Robinson Scotsman

CHARLES EMMERSON was born in Australia and grew up in London. After graduating top of his class in Modern History from Oxford University he took up an Entente Cordiale scholarship to study international relations and international public law in Paris. The author of The Future History of the Arctic (2010), he has also written numerous articles for a variety of newspapers, as well as speaking widely on geopolitics to university, literary, government and business audiences.He is a Senior Research Fellow at Chatham House (the Royal Institute for International Affairs).

General Fields

  • : 9781847922267
  • : The Bodley Head
  • : Ursula Nordstrom
  • : 0.997
  • : April 2013
  • : 240mm X 156mm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : May 2013
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Charles Emmerson
  • : Hardback
  • : 303.48209041
  • : very good
  • : 544