1913

Majestic and cliché-defying

Sheena McDonald, Herald

Presents the true nature of the time, poised in hope

Discover Britain

Marvellous

John Lichfield, Independent on Sunday

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

Wade Davis

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

PROFESSOR NORMAN STONE, author of World War One: A Short History

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

David Crane, Spectator

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

David Robinson, Scotsman

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

Mark Damazer, New Statesman

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

The History Blog

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

Piers Brendon, Independent

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

Ian Thomson, Observer

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

Choice

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

Iain Finlayson, The Times

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

Christopher Smith, Eastern Daily Press

Where Emmerson really scores is in the nuggets of detail

Caroline Jowett, Daily Express

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

Roger Hutchinson, Scotsman

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

Richard Fitzpatrick, Sunday Business Post

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

Kathryn Hughes, Guardian

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

Hugh MacDonald, Herald

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

Christopher Hudson, Daily Mail

1913 has narrative verve and insight

Ian Thompson, Guardian Weekly

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

Economist

[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

Good Book Guide

Magnificent

Christopher Clark, London Review of Books

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

Jay Winter, Times Literary Supplement

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

Good Book Guide

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

Joanna Bourke, BBC History Magazine

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

Anthony Sattin, Observer

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

Alastair Mabbott, Herald

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

Mail on Sunday

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

Good Book Guide

Fascinating and sobering

Mail on Sunday