News
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Jack Beatty reviews Sean McMeekin
16 Dec 2013
Sean McMeekin’s July 1914: Countdown to War has been warmly reviewed by Jack Beatty, senior editor of The Atlantic, and news analyst for NPR:
“When I saw July 1914: Countdown to War by Sean McMeekin in a book store, my heart sank. The “July Crisis” that followed the assassination of the Austrian Archduke, Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo and that ended in war is the most ploughed over episode in diplomatic history. Although by no means a scholar, I had read “The World Crisis, Volume I, 1911-1914″ by Winston Churchill, the two –volume history by Sidney Fay published in the 1920s, the documentary history edited by Immanuel Geiss published in the 1960s, and the three-volume opus by Luigi Albertini published in English in the 1950’s. Of more recent works, the diplomatic dance of death in Vienna, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Paris, and London occupies much of Hugh Strachan’s massive “The First World War Volume I: To Arms (2001)”, the first third of David Stevenson’s “Cataclysm: The First World War as Political Tragedy (2005),” and nearly all of “Decisions for War, 1914-1917 (2003),” edited by Richard H. Hamilton and Holger H. Herwig. How, I wondered in the bookstore, could there be anything new to say about the July Crisis? And how could Sean McMeekin, called the “leading young historian of modern Europe” by Norman Stone, how could the author of original works like The Russian Origins of the First World War and The Berlin-Baghdad Express–what was this imaginative, multilingual scholar doing spending his time on this stale subject? It took only a few pages of “July 1914″ to buoy my heart. McMeekin makes this old story new. His history reads like a novel. Better, it unfolds like a play. There is no “going behind,” as Henry James termed authorial interventions in a novel’s forward flow. There is no going ahead, either. Events happen in the text as they did in life. The historical actors don’t know the consequences of their acts; neither does the reader. The footfalls of the future echo only in the foreshadowings that end chapters: “As they awoke Monday, Bethmann and Jagow would have some quick thinking to do. News was flooding in from Belgrade, Vienna, Petersburg, Paris, and London. Almost none of it was what anyone in Berlin wanted to hear.” McMeekin adds dollops of fresh savory fact on every page. More importantly, he sees the whole crisis unclouded by bias for or against his characters or their countries. He saves moral judgment for the end. “When we examine the key moral question of 1914–responsibility for the outbreak of European, then world war—it is important to keep degrees of responsibility in mind. Sins of omission are lesser ones than sins of commission: likewise, actions are not equivalent to the reactions they occasion.” That last observation is characteristic of McMeekin’s subtle turn of mind. He applies it exquisitely in assessing blame for the war. Serbia, the source of the plot to kill the Archduke, stands first “in the dock of judgment.” Next Austria-Hungary, for its reckless escalation of the crisis. Next Germany, for giving Austria the notorious “blank check” to attack Serbia. Closely behind is Serbia’s protector, Russia: “The decision for European war was made by Russia on the night of 29 July 1914, when Tsar Nicholas II, advised unanimously by his advisers, signed the order of general mobilization. General mobilization…meant war.” Next France, for goading Russia on, and for…well, enough. ”July 1914″ is superb history and compelling reading.”
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Cathy Glass launches writing guide
13 Dec 2013
Cathy Glass’s new creative writing guide About Writing has gone straight to number one in its Amazon category.
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Marina Chapman documentary reviewed by Daily Telegraph
13 Dec 2013
Adrian Michaels reviews Woman Raised by Monkeys, National Geographic’s unusual account of Marina Chapman’s return to the Colombian jungle.
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Christian Jennings is interviewed by Prospect magazine
13 Dec 2013
‘Bosnia, writes Christian Jennings at the beginning of his new book, is “still struggling to come to terms with the events that took place from 1992 to 1995.” Central to the attempts to deal with the legacy of the war in the Balkans is the work of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), an organisation that, in 1999, took on the job of identifying the remains of the victims of that bloody conflict. In its mandate, the ICMP assumed the task of helping governments in the region “deal with the enormous problem of persons who had been killed or had gone missing as a result of wars, ethnic conflicts [and] human-rights abuses…”’
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Lots of coverage for MRF Shadow Troop
12 Dec 2013
Simon Cursey’s shocking account of British undercover operations in Northern Ireland, MRF Shadow Troop, has generated huge coverage following the BBC Panorama investigation.
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More coverage for Instant Whips and Dreams Toppings
11 Dec 2013
Jacky Donovan’s shocking memoir of her life as a dominatrix received more coverage in the Sunday papers, including the Star and Express.
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Congratulations to Cathy Glass
11 Dec 2013
Many congratulations to Cathy Glass who was third and fifth respectively in the Sunday Times bestselling memoirs of the year with Please Don’t Take My Baby, published in April, selling 48,145 copies and Will You Love Me? , published in September, selling 40,625 copies.
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Huge coverage for Sean McMeekin
10 Dec 2013
Sean McMeekin’s July 1914: Countdown to War has been widely reviewed and praised, and was named by Kirkus as one of the best non-fiction books of 2013. Other reviews and coverage include:
New York Times review Publishers Weekly starred review National Review ABC interview Kirkus review FT review Historically Speaking interview …and many more.
“[M]asterful.” —Washington Times
“[McMeekin is] a young, talented historian…. [He] is scrupulously fair and judicious in assigning blame…. McMeekin has written a fascinating and original study of the opening stages of World War I, a book that supersedes, in my view, any previous study of that great topic.” —John P. Rossi, Philadelphia Inquirer
“The historiography of World War I is immense, more than 25,000 volumes and articles even before next year’s centenary. Still, … Sean McMeekin, in July 1914, [offers a] new perspective…. McMeekin has chosen the zoom lens. He opens with a crisp but vivid reconstruction of the double murder in the sunshine of Sarajevo, then concentrates entirely on unraveling the choreography day by day.” —Harold Evans, New York Times Book Review
“[A] superbly researched political history of the weeks between the assassination of Austria’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the beginning of World War I…. McMeekin’s work is a fine diplomatic history of the period, a must-read for serious students of WWI, and a fascinating story for anyone interested in modern history.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Lucid, convincing and full of rich detail, the book is a triumph for the narrative method and a vivid demonstration that chronology is the logic of history.” —The Independent (UK)
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Cracked is one of the top ten books of 2013
09 Dec 2013
NetGalley has selected James Davies’ Cracked - Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good as one of the ten best books of 2013.
“James Davies’ timely expose of the psychiatry industry makes for fascinating and thought-provoking reading. Using his insider knowledge to illustrate for a general readership how psychiatry has put riches and medical status above patients’ well-being, Davies shows a real flair for the polemic, as well as a real sympathy for the senstivity of the subject.”
