Geoffrey Wawro, “A Mad Catastrophe: The Outbreak of World War I and the Collapse of the Habsburg Empire” (Basic Books, 2014)

Geoffrey Wawro, “A Mad Catastrophe: The Outbreak of World War I and the Collapse of the Habsburg Empire” (Basic Books, 2014)

When I was in graduate school, those of us who studied World War One commented regularly on the degree to which historians concentrated their attention on the Western front at the expense of the other aspects of the war. In the years since then (I won’t say how many), historians have worked hard to remedy this neglect. Nevertheless, we still know much less about the Eastern Front than we do about events in France or even the homefronts of Western and Central Europe. Geoffrey Wawro‘s new book A Mad Catastrophe: The Outbreak of World War I and the Collapse of the Habsburg Empire (Basic Books, 2014), fills in an important part of this gap. Wawro is most interested in understanding why the Empire chose to go to war despite (or perhaps because of) its many challenges and why it failed so immediately and drastically. Decisions made by diplomats, soldiers and politicians in Vienna played a critical role in starting the war. And decisions made by the leaders of the Monarchy’s army’s played just as important a role in leading an admittedly flawed instrument to defeat. Wawro tells this story with verve and insight. His characterizations are compelling and his prose stimulating. It’s a book that reads like a novel yet answers crucial questions about the course of the war. It helps us understand a collapse that set the stage for decades of death and destruction. For that reason alone, Wawro’s analysis of that collapse is a great addition to our understanding of the war and of Central Europe in the Twentieth Century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

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Jaksot(1705)

Francesca Lessa and Sebastián Santana, "Operation Condor: The Pact That Terrorized a Continent" (Storia, 2025)

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In Operation Condor: The Pact That Terrorized a Continent (Storia, 2025), Francesca Lessa uncovers the shadowy machinery behind one of the most chilling transnational terror campaigns of the twentieth...

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Michael E. Neagle, "Chasing Bandits: America's Long War on Terror" (UNC Press, 2025)

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While the war on terror has been America's largest and most publicized attempt to root out foreign enemies this century, the quest to identify and destroy real or imagined threats to national security...

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Charles Lachman, "They Shall Not See the Dawn: The Manhunt for the Third Reich's Most Wanted" (Diversion Books, 2026)

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May 1945. The Reich is in ruins. Hitler is dead. Yet for the US Army’s Counter Intelligence Corps, the real war has just begun. They Shall Not See the Dawn: The Manhunt for the Third Reich's Most W...

11 Syys 32min

Emily Matson, "China’s Date Debate: How Manchurian Scholars Rewrote World War II" (U Michigan Press, 2026)

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China’s Date Debate: How Manchurian Scholars Rewrote World War II (U Michigan Press, 2026) by Dr. Emily Matson is an in-depth investigation of the Chinese Communist Party’s remapping of China’s World ...

6 Syys 33min

Valeria Vázquez Guevara, "Truth Commissions and International Law: Jurisdiction, Representation, Authority" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

Valeria Vázquez Guevara, "Truth Commissions and International Law: Jurisdiction, Representation, Authority" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

Truth Commissions and International Law: Jurisdiction, Representation, Authority (Cambridge University Press, 2026) examines how truth commissions construct authoritative accounts of conflict, and h...

4 Syys 45min

Done in a Day with the Vietnam War: Elisa Tamarkin (JP)

Done in a Day with the Vietnam War: Elisa Tamarkin (JP)

Elisa Tamarkin, an English prof of high repute (Anglophilia and Apropos of Something: A History of Irrelevance and Relevance) at UC Berkeley, joins RTB to discuss Done in a Day: Telex from the Fall of...

3 Syys 41min

Whistling Arrows and Heavenly Horses: The Han-Xiongnu War

Whistling Arrows and Heavenly Horses: The Han-Xiongnu War

John Ross speaks with Scott Forbes Crawford about his book The Han-Xiongnu War, 133 BC–89 AD (Pen & Sword Military, 2024) For more than two centuries, Han China fought a bitter struggle against the ...

2 Syys 32min

Muy Lang Lim, "In the Shadow of the Khmer Rouge: A Child Survivor's Memoir" (NUS Press, 2026)

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As a child, Lim Muy Lang grew up in a prosperous Sino-Khmer family in Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. When the Khmer Rouge seized power in April 1975, her family, al...

1 Syys 46min

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