The Guns of August

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   A massive war can start from a series of small misunderstandings and rushed decisions, made by people who sincerely believed they were doing the right thing.

   The Guns of August · 1962

   A catastrophic war can emerge from a cascade of small, hasty decisions, each pressing the accelerator without seeing the abyss.

   Tuchman describes the first weeks of World War I as trains that could no longer be stopped, rigid military plans, and messages misread between capitals. No leader initially wanted a war this huge, but each small decision pushed the situation further along, with no way back to peace.

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