The First World War and the Russian Revolution together shaped the twentieth century in profound ways. For the first time, Dominic Lieven presents a compelling case for the English-speaking audience of just how intertwined the two events were. You cannot understand one without the other. War broke out in July 1914 as a result of an Austrian attempt to destroy the independent Serbian state and turn it into a Habsburg protectorate. More broadly, the war erupted as a struggle between the Germanic powers (i.e., Germany and Austria) and Russia to control east-central Europe, with the Russians attempting to mobilize a Slavic bloc in the face of what they perceived as overwhelming Germanic power and aggression. But the specific east European issues at stake were a variation on global themes. In Lieven"s view, the underlying conflict was above all else a war for and about empires. This does not, however, mean that the war was the inevitable outcome of great impersonal forces in history. If...