Every so often a book comes along that simply must be read. 1913 is such a work. Luminous and majestic, rich in detail and stunning in its depth of research, 1913 is a sweeping and haunting portrait of the world on the edge of the precipice… Read this book, but be prepared to stifle at the end of every page an urge to scream out a warning to those long since dead that they must take another road

Charles Emmerson explores an endlessly interesting question: How did the great glossy world of the European Empires come to grief in 1914? This is a most elegantly written book and should stand comparison with the much older classic, Barbara Tuchman’s The Proud Tower

A masterful, comprehensive portrait of the world at that last moment in its history…

If Downton Abbey still colours your impression of what Britain was like on the cusp of the First World War, 1913 could be a useful corrective

One of the great merits of Charles Emmerson’s global panorama is to show events in the months leading up to the summer of 1914 as something other than a precursor to mass slaughter

Majestic and cliché-defying

Presents the true nature of the time, poised in hope

Marvellous

For anybody wanting to understand this time period, including individuals with a keen interest in the events of the Great War, this is a must read book which helps portray a rather different picture to what many might suspect

Emmerson has done his homework. His book girdles the earth in an impressive fashion and conjures up a world we have lost

With a few deft strokes, Emmerson conjures an air of looming catastrophe

A fascinating tour that reveals a truly global society emerging for the first time in human history

The old empires were starting to implode and the centres could no longer hold. In an ambitious book, Emmerson catches their last vital sparks in the year before darkness fell

Leaves readers with an astonishing panorama of bustling human activity in places as different and as far apart as London and Winnipeg, Tokyo and Detroit

Where Emmerson really scores is in the nuggets of detail

An epic, sprawling panorama of a book, intended to show the moving world as it was, to bring the past to life in order to clarify the present. It’s a monumentally ambitious aim. The remarkable thing is, he pulls it off

There is so much that captivates, particularly the entertaining social detail and anecdote

An ambitious, subtle account of the way the world was going until the first world war changed everything

A consistently brilliant survey… The conception of 1913 can thus be described as a smart idea. Its consummation is, frankly, astonishing… A world that was about to embrace death is brought to life with wit, sharpness and occasional delicacy

This ambitious panorama of a world on the brink throws up comparisons that are constantly provocative and fascinating

1913 has narrative verve and insight

What emerges is a rich portrait and an important set of ideas

[Emmerson] takes the reader on a fascinating trip to the brash, bustling cities of North America, before heading off to places as diverse as Buenos Aires and Bombay

Magnificent

[Emmerson’s] entertaining tour d’horizon is both witty and charming.

A wonderful portrayal of a world before it was cataclysmically changed, a world very different from ours but with some frightening similarities

Brings the fantasies, anxieties and passions of city-dwellers immediately prior to the First World War eloquently to life

Emmerson provides a real sense of 1913 by combining details of individual lives with sweeping international trends: one of the great pleasures of this book is to see parallels between then and now

Unique... A high-definition snapshot of the world as it stood a century ago

A series of vivid vignettes... Offers fascinating glimpses of everyday life

A wonderful portrayal of a world before it was cataclysmically changed by war

Fascinating and sobering

[A] fascinating and lively history

Very complex – but you will grasp it

A fascination exploration

Highly readable but profoundly researched, The Trigger represents a bold exception to the deluge of First World War books devoted to mud, blood and poetry

a fascinating original portrait of a man and his country