As we go into the 21st century and we ask ourselves questions about when is it right to go to war . . . the First World War actually carries a great deal of purchase for us. Because those who were fighting it were aware of these ambiguities but still felt it was important and necessary to fight it. – Sir Hew Strachan
Commissioned by the Oxford University Press to write a history of the First World War, Hew Strachan completed the first of three volumes, The First World War: To Arms, which was praised as “the first truly definitive history” of the conflict.
Strachan's other books include The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War, The Direction of War: Contemporary Strategy in Historical Perspective, The First World War in Africa, Clausewitz's On War, The Politics of the British Army, and European Armies and the Conduct of War. He is Professor of International Relations at the University of St Andrews.