The War That Ended Peace is a very long book about the events that led up to World War 1, but that length doesn't keep it from being a compelling read that keeps the reader's interest.

I feel like each book on a vast subject will have a different focus, and that was certainly the case with this book. The previous book I read on this subject focused on Serbia and had less to do with Great Britain. This book was much more focused on Britain, although it did cover each of the major players. In general, I thought that the organization was pretty well done, and like I said, it moved quickly enough that it didn't seem to drag. One thing that I found frustrating was that the author didn't bother to explain who various characters were when they came up again after being off screen for a while. A two or three word reminder would have really helped. What was worse was when political figures who weren't discussed in the book were briefly mentioned without any info on who they were. The one I noticed was Atatürk, who I knew of, but it wouldn't have ruined the book to have included a comma and five words of explanation.

The goal of the book was to describe the events that put the world on the road to war, and the author stuck to that. She went beyond just blaming one country or another and talked often about the problems caused by the ideas of Social Darwinism and the need of men who were involved the governments to look manly. I get the impression that a lot of people blamed Germany for the war, so it was really interesting to hear more about ideas instead of just governments.

While I probably wouldn't read this book again, I would certainly read others by this author.

Should you read it? Are you interested in how the world got to be the way it is now? If so, then yes. I can't say that everyone would benefit from reading it, though. That would be a bit much. However, anyone who is interested in history, especially European history would probably enjoy it.