1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War

Charles Emmerson has set out to find the world as it was 100 years ago, before the Guns of August [1914] and the theretofore unimaginable carnage unleashed by the first World War. Emmerson's world is one of empires, and it is these building blocks that he uses to construct 1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War.

Chapter-by-chapter, the reader is taken on a tour of each empire and outpost: the British, of course, and the American, the Austro-Hungarian, French, Ottoman, Russian, and even the beginnings of the Japanese empire. By examining life, politics, and the zeitgeist in leading cities from London, Washington, Paris, and Vienna, and stopping by Jerusalem, Mexico City, Durban, and Beijing, Emmerson provides an intricate birds-eye view look at the world as it was. (In total he covers 23 cities on all six inhabited continents, an impressive feat.) This is actually the second book on pre-WWI empires that I've set out to read this year and, whether it was the organization or Emmerson's tone and style, I much preferred 1913 to The Age of Empire.

Personally, I found the chapter on the Austro-Hungarian Empire to be the most interesting, followed closely by those chapters that chronicled the last days of the Ottoman Empire, likely because I knew the least about these two empires and, therefore, felt I learned the most. For 1913 is an excellent sampler, something to whet the appetite before digging in deeper to anyone of these empires. As Emmerson notes in his closing paragraphs, this book seeks to capture, "a world bathed in the last rays of the dying sun, a world of order and security, a world unknowingly on the brink of the seminal catastrophe of the twentieth century" (p. 456). Of this, he has done an admiral job. For the reader seeking more, though, wanting to understand the full story - and consequences - for any one of these empires, that reader may want to consider any of the following in lieu of or in addition to 1913.

• For more on the American empire: The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War

• For more on the Japanese empire: Flyboys

• For more on the consequences of empire in the Middle East:  Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia or Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell (Lawrence and Bell are both British, so there is also quite a bit about the British Empire, but each offers an excellent look at the Middle East before - and after - World War I).

• For more on the British empire: The Perfect Summer, England 1911: Just Before the Storm (Sorry, I read this before I started the blog, but Juliet Nicolson's look at Britain just a couple of years earlier than Emmerson's is really outstanding.)

• And, of course, I would be remiss not to add The Beauty and the Sorrow to this list, as it remains, for me, the most in-depth and moving look at World War I imaginable. As a POW remarks, “the great lords have quarreled, and we must pay for it with our blood, our wives and children” (p. 18-19). Emmerson's book ends on the brink of the quarrel.