1914 The Year The World Ended
In this searing indictment of the rationale behind the First World War, Paul Ham argues that European leaders did not ‘sleepwalk’ into war, but that they fully accepted and understood the consequences of the decisions they were making.
In August 1914, the European powers plunged the world into a war that would kill or wound 37 million people, tear down the fabric of society, uproot ancient political systems and set the world on course for the bloodiest century in human history.
On the eve of the 100th anniversary of that terrible year, Ham takes the reader on a journey into the labyrinth, to reveal the complexity, the layered motives, the flawed and disturbed minds that drove the world to war. What emerges is a clear sense of what happened and why. 'To understand the past,' Ham concludes, 'and share that understanding, is the chief role of the historian. To understand the past is to liberate ourselves from its awful shadow and steel ourselves against it happening again.'
Paul Ham is the author of twelve books, including The Soul: A History of the Human Mind, Hiroshima Nagasaki, Passchendaele: The Bloody Battle that Nearly Lost the Allies the War, 1914: The Year the World Ended, Sandakan: The Untold Story of the Sandakan Death Marches, Vietnam: The Australian War and Kokoda.
Hiroshima Nagasaki is being made into a six-part radio drama by Goldhawk and Thoroughbred Studios, due out in 2026.
All Paul's books have won or been shortlisted for major literary prizes in Australia. Vietnam and Kokoda were made into ABC documentaries, which he co-wrote and presented.
A former Sunday Times correspondent, with a Master’s degree from the London School of
Economics, Paul now lives in Paris and devotes his time to writing history and (when possible) teaching a course in Narrative History at Sciences Po, France’s preeminent tertiary school for the humanities.