That these three absurd men could ever have held the fate of Europe in their hands is a fact as hilarious as it is terrifying.” The whole thing really lives and breathes-and it’s very funny. “Entertaining and well-researched, with acute pen portraits of the major players.” Relying on apt quotations and instructive anecdotes, Carter, in this always readable history, persuasively relates role in beginning a war that was supposed to end all wars.” Others, such as World War I, could have been avoided. An entertaining and accessible study of power and personality.” a prism though which to tell the march to the first World War, the creation of the modern industrial world and the follies of hereditary courts and the eccentricities of their royal trans-European cousinhood.

“The parallel, interrelated lives of Kaiser Wilhelm II, George V, and Nicholas II are. The personal, hidden history of King George V, Tsar Nicholas II and Kaiser Wilhelm II’s relationship incomparable, haunting and unforgettable.” While keeping her focus on the three cousins and their extended families, skillfully interweaves and summarizes all important elements of how the war came about. The reader is swept up in the pageantry, pathos and glory of an era that makes our own seem remorselessly venial and vulgar.” She places each monarch in his unique context, providing a tapestry of the age and the maneuvering that led to the outbreak of war. This is history on a vast scale written on an intimate level, and it is immensely rewarding. Carter has clearly not bitten off more than she can chew for she-as John Updike once wrote of Gunter Grass-’chews it enthusiastically before our eyes.’” Carter writes incisively about the overlapping events that led to the Great War and changed the world.

George wilhelm nicholas cousins