Pandora’s Box: A History of the First World War - Softcover

Winner of the Norman B. Tomlinson, Jr., Prize

“A major contribution...the best large-scale synthesis in any language of what we currently know and understand about this multidimensional, cataclysmic conflict.”
―Richard J. Evans, Times Literary Supplement

“[An] epic and magnificent work―unquestionably, for me, the best single-volume history of the war I have ever read...It is the most formidable attempt to make the war to end all wars comprehensible as a whole.”
―Simon Heffer, The Spectator

“Extremely readable, lucidly structured, focused, and dynamic, Pandora’s Box shows that the world that emerges from the First World War is utterly transformed by the experience.”
―Christopher Clark, author of The Sleepwalkers

In this monumental history of the First World War, Germany’s leading historian of the war explains its origins, course, and consequences. Jörn Leonhard treats the clash of arms with a sure feel for grand strategy, brilliantly capturing the everyday tactics of dynamic movement and slow attrition, the race for ever more destructive technologies, and the grim experiences of frontline soldiers. But the war was much more than a military conflict, and he also gives us the perspectives of leaders, intellectuals, artists, and ordinary men and women on different home fronts as they grappled with unprecedented political and social pressures. With an unrivaled combination of depth and global reach, Pandora’s Box reveals how profoundly the war shaped the world to come.