News
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Rave reviews for Sean McMeekin's The Russian Origins of the First World War
06 Feb 2012
Sean McMeekin’s prize-winning new book has gathered a cluster of good reviews including:
Casting a contrarian eye on the first major conflict of the twentieth century, Sean McMeekin finds the roots of WWI inside Russia, whose leaders deliberately sought—for their own ends—to expand a brawl that the Germans wanted to keep local. The author tracks the fallout of these antique plots right down to the present geopolitical landscape. Barnes & Noble Review
An entirely new take on the origins of World War I comes as a surprise. If war guilt is to be assigned, this book argues, it should go not only (or even primarily) to Germany—the long-accepted culprit—but also to Russia… Bold reading between the lines of history Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs
Going against a century of received wisdom, Bilkent University professorMcMeekin offers a dramatic new interpretation of WWI… Rifling the archives, analyzing battle plans, and sifting through the machinations of high diplomacy, McMeekin reveals the grand ambitions of czarist Russia, which wanted control of the Black Sea straits to guarantee all-weather access to foreign markets. Maneuvering France and England into a war against Germany presented the best chance to acquire this longed-for prize. No empire had more to gain from the coming conflict, and none pushed harder to ensure its arrival. Once unleashed, however, the conflagration leapt out of control, and imperial Russia herself ranked among its countless victims. Publishers Weekly
As Sean McMeekin argues in this bold and brilliant revisionist study, Russia was as much to blame as Germany for the outbreak of the war. Using a wide range of archival sources, including long-neglected tsarist documents, he argues that the Russians had ambitions of their own (the dismantling of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires, no less) and that they were ready for a war once they had secured a favorable alliance with the British and the French. Orlando Figes, The Sunday Times
A bold reinterpretation of the Russian Empire’s entry into the First World War.McMeekin argues that Russia believed a European war to be in its interest, that it sought to humiliate Vienna, and that it hoped to conquer Constantinople and the Ottoman Straits. Mustafa Aksakal, author of The Ottoman Road to War in 1914
This book should forever change the ways we have understood the role of Russia in the First World War. Michael S. Neiberg, author of Dance of the Furies: Europe and the Outbreak of World War I
The Russian Origins of the First World War is a polemic in the best sense. Written in a lively and engaging style, it should provoke a much-needed debate on Russia’s role in the Great War. Michael Reynolds, author of Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires, 1908–1918
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Maths on Trial sold to Basic Books
03 Feb 2012
World rights in Coralie Colmez and Leila Schnep’s Maths on Trial , ten criminal cases in each of which, at a crucial point, a mathematical mistake played a significant role., have been bought by Basic.
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US rights sold in book on Atlantis
03 Feb 2012
US rights in Peter Daughtrey’s exciting book which pinpoints the location of the lost city of Atlantis has been sold to Pegasus who publish next spring.
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New Cathy Glass title to Harper Colllins
31 Jan 2012
Harper Collins have bought another fostering memoir from best selling author Cathy Glass. Another Forgotten Child will be published in August.
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How to complain website goes live
28 Jan 2012
Jasper Griegson’s new website complainer.co.uk went live this week. The site provides useful tips, advice and sample letters for anyone with a gripe. Jasper hopes to use his online presence as a platform for raising his profile alongside social networking and his forthcoming television appearances. This in turn should assist him to launch his next book which will be ready by the Spring.
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Two sales to The History Press
28 Jan 2012
The History Press have bought UK rights in two trivia history titles:
David Haviland’s The Not-So-Nude Ride of Lady Godiva which explores the entire history of human civilisation, from the Trojan Wars all the way up to the first Iraq War.
Ian Graham’s Imposters which tells the stories of the boldest and most notorious impostors of the past 500 years from fraudulent claimants to thrones and titles, fantasists, fake natives and criminals to women who lived as men.
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UK deal for Stalin’s General: The Life of Georgy Zhukov
26 Jan 2012
UK rights in Geoff Roberts’s Stalin’s General: The Life of Georgy Zhukov to be published by Random House(US) later this year have been bought by Icon.
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New book deal for Roger Crowley
26 Jan 2012
Roger Crowley’s regular publishers Faber and Random House have commissioned a new book Lords of the Navigation: How the Portuguese launched the age of discovery and the first global empire to be published in 2014.
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City of Fortune continues to garner good reviews
26 Jan 2012
Roger Crowley’s City of Fortune: How Venice Won and Lost a Naval Empire continues to garner good reviews, most recently from the New York Times. A blog and podcast on the book can be found at
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Sean McMeekin long-listed for Lionel Gerber Prize
24 Jan 2012
Congratulations to Sean McMeekin whose The Russian Origins of the FIrst World War has been long-listed for the 2012 Lionel Gelber Prize awarded for books on foreign affairs that deepen public debate on important international issues.
The long list Includes: Berlin 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth by Frederick Kempe; Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson; On China by Henry Kissinger ;The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution by Francis Fukuyama and The Wars of Afghanistan: Messianic Terrorism, Tribal Conflicts, and the Failures Of Great Powers by Peter Tomsen.
The five-book shortlist will be announced on Monday, February 13, and the winner on Monday, March 12, 2012. The $15,000 award is presented annually by the Lionel Gelber Foundation, in partnership with Foreign Policy Magazine and the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto.
