The horrors of the First World War--trench warfare, human tragedy, and military blunders--are well known, yet the the role of politicians and diplomats has strangely been neglected. Redressing this imbalance, David Stevenson focusses on the politics of the war: why the governments of the day resorted to violence in pursuit of their political objectives, why conflict expanded to a global level, the significance of the Russian Revolution, why it was...