SOURCE: “Scholar Challenges Theories on the Origins of World War I,” in Chicago Tribune Books, August 9, 1999, p. 3.

In the following review, Boasberg offers a positive assessment of The Pity of War.

World War I was a stupid war, stupidly fought. The carnage was horrendous. In the four years and three months that the war dragged on, from August 1914 to November 1918, the Allied Powers—France, Britain, the British Empire, Belgium, the United States (entering in 1917), Russia (leaving, defeated, in 1917), Italy, Romania, Serbia, Greece and Portugal—lost 5,421,000 killed in action, more than 7 million wounded. The Central Powers—Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey—suffered 4,029,000 killed, more than 8 million wounded.

The war was fought, especially on the western front, mainly in the trenches. The commanders would send men “over the top” to be slaughtered en masse. Why did the men continue fighting? Patriotism? That had something to do with it. Loyalty to...