Hundreds of books have been written about World War I, dozens of which are about the causes of the Great War. Jack Beatty-whose father fought in the war, giving him a very personal connection to it-has written a highly original chronicle of events in 1914 in each of the major countries involved, showing clearly that, far from being inevitable as so many historians have argued, the conflict that consumed so many lives was highly accidental in nature. "My book draws a new map, uncovering paths to peace long buried under the avalanche of war," Beatty writes. "I hope readers will come away thinking that nothing was inevitable about what George Kennan later called 'the great seminal catastrophe of the twentieth century.' I mean "lost history" in two senses. "Lost" as in "forgotten," and "lost" as in "did not win." In Germany, Austria-Hungary, France, England, Mexico, America, and other participant countries, Beatty examines pivotal events ignored or overlooked by most historians, whose accidental outcomes bore heavily on the outbreak of the war. His original perspective sheds new light on a defining event in the twentieth century.