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Combining an informative, eloquently written text with a wealth of relevant photographs, Russell Freedman’s The War to End All Wars is a magnificent overview of World War I.

The scope of The War to End All Wars is wide, but there’s a logical progression to the way Freedman lays out information. Beginning with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the alliances and rivalries among various European countries in 1914, Freedman discusses the chain of events that led to the war in an engaging style that is both elegant and authoritative. It is not stuffy or bland, and the narrative is written with enough clarity that there is no need for sidebars or extraneous text boxes to explain or emphasize details.

And so Europe was caught up in a war that few had expected and almost no one wanted. Even today, historians continue to debate the tangled and confusing causes of the conflict, the series of accidents, blunders, and misunderstandings that swept the nations of Europe toward war in the summer of 1914, whether war might have been avoided, and which persons or nations were most responsible. Wars in the past had often been caused by countries seeking more land or natural resources, or acting out of suspicion and fear of their rivals. And once a country is fully armed and poised to attack, war, it seems, is hard to avoid.

The events that unfolded as Europe careened toward catastrophe appeared to defy logic and common sense. Austria had wanted to punish Serbia, and then, one by one, other nations were drawn into the quarrel. To support Austria in its conflict with Russia over Serbia, Germany had attacked France by invading Belgium. And Britain had declared a state of war throughout the vast British Empire. In the rush of events, the Kingdom of Serbia, supposedly the cause of the war, had almost been forgotten.

Each nation believed that it was fighting a defensive war forced upon it by someone else. And each army was convinced that it could defeat its enemies within a few months and that the troops would be home by Christmas. (p. 18-19 of ARC; text may change upon publication)

In addition to examining the important battles of the war, Freedman discusses some of the technological advances—both leading up to and during the war—that distinguished World War I from previous wars, as well as their impact on the grimness of trench warfare. This helps add context to the coverage of the fighting, particularly important because of how Freedman beautifully integrates first person accounts from rulers and diplomats and, most of all, soldiers into his narrative. These quotes, affecting and mournful and tragic (just one brief example, from a longer journal entry by Henri Desagneaux, a French lieutenant: “Our heads are buzzing, we have had enough…. Numb and dazed, without saying a word, and with our hearts pounding, we await the shell that will destroy us.” p. 89 of ARC), give The War to End All Wars additional depth and readers an intimate glimpse at what the war was like for those involved in it. Freedman concludes his narrative with a look at the end of the war and how it set the stage for World War II, among other things.

Although Freedman packs a considerable amount of information into the text, there are some omissions that were obvious even to me, someone who has probably picked up more information about World War I from historical mysteries than can I recall from AP European History. More attention is paid to the Western Front than the Eastern Front, and because Freedman spent some time covering the mood on the homefront at the start of the war, I was surprised that he did not revisit this topic as the war went on. Nevertheless, these are minor criticisms overall. As this is