The first in a five-volume set of essential reading that examines the causes of the Great War

This, the first in Sir Winston Churchill's five-volume history examining the events and context leading up to the outbreak of World War I from a true insider's point of view, is unsurpassed as both a historical and personal account of the earth-shaking events leading up to the Great War.

Churchill's epic series begins in 1911, when Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty, and opens with a chilling description of the Agadir Crisis, and an in-depth account of naval clashes in the Dardanelles--one of Churchill's major military failures. It takes readers from the fierce bloodshed of the Gallipoli campaign to the tragic sinking of the Lusitania and the tide-turning battles of Jutland and Verdun--as well as the USA's entry into the combat theater.

Written in powerful prose by a great leader who would also go on to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature, and based on thousands of his own personal letters and memos, The World Crisis provides a perspective you won't find anywhere else: a dynamic insider's account of events that would shape the outcome of modern history.