1913

June 3, 2013
Two decades into the 21st century what could possibly be left to say about the 20th? Emmerson, a fellow at the Royal Institute for International Affairs has reached back 100 years and found plenty. His engrossing book profiles world cities who will play pivotal roles in the century's narrative arc, from "Old World" European powers through Asia's "Twilight Powers". This historical time is unique in being the moment the globe was finally completely discovered and claimed, as well as interconnected via telegraph wires, railway lines, and shipping routes, creating what has become the globalization we presently take for granted. Emmerson's best chapters lay foundations for the global issues on the horizon like race and diplomacy in America, and oil and religious differences in the Middle East; lesser-known personal and institutional stories laying the groundwork for enriched understandings of world events to come. By staying so tightly focused on this single year, Emmerson is able to reveal causal mechanisms while simultaneously making readers wonder what could have been. No reader will leave this work without ever again looking at current events as clues, a living history of powers to come and go with all the possible advancements and catastrophes that will follow.

April 15, 2013
Most books about the year 1913 deal with the run-up to World War I. Emmerson (The Future History of the Arctic, 2010), fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, casts his net more widely, depicting life in two dozen great cities on the eve of the event that either ushered in the modern world or didn't (historians still debate this). The author has little new to say but says it well, and the further he travels from Europe, the more he illuminates areas unfamiliar to even educated readers. Parallels between eras a century apart are not in short supply. Observers in 1913 were already extolling a globalized planet, knit together by dazzling advances in technology. Democracy and capitalism seemed the wave of the future despite the disturbing spread of terrorist movements. The reigning superpower, Britain, was in relative decline, with Asia re-awakening and other rising powers flexing their muscles. In five chapters, Emmerson examines European capitals on a continent that took for granted that it was the center of the world, barely aware that the United States (four particular cities) was poised to take over that role. The hinterlands (Buenos Aires, Tehran, Jerusalem and others), colonies (Winnipeg, Bombay, Algiers and others) and Asian metropolises complete Emmerson's world tour. Although ostensibly about cities, the author also describes the country involved, often emphasizing a major figure--e.g., Woodrow Wilson in Washington, Gandhi in Durban, South Africa. Emmerson largely confines himself to history and national concerns with only a passing look at international politics on the verge of the Great War, but this is an intelligent picture of our world exactly 100 years ago.

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May 15, 2013
Writing about a year of possibility not predestination, Emmerson surveys a selection of cities around the world as they appeared in 1913. Portraying the European capitals of the next year's belligerent countries, Emmerson strikes a cosmopolitan tone by noting social interconnections linking London to Paris to Berlin to Constantinople. Diarists and travelers populate his narratives, their descriptions lending eyewitness immediacy to his delineation of streetscapes, new architecture, and political issues. Above all, Emmerson seeks to evoke the economic globalization that affected, in positive and negative ways, all the cities he presents. As 1913 was, in retrospect, the apex of empires, Emmerson dwells on the imperial outlooks from Britain and France and from the empires doomed to destruction in the war ahead, the Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Ottoman. Turning from centers of power to cities beginning to boom from their global linkages, Emmerson enunciates the aspirations of outliers like Winnipeg, Melbourne, and Buenos Aires. Including stops in Tehran, Mexico City, Jerusalem, several U.S. cities, Shanghai, and Tokyo, Emmerson's historical world tour emotively captures the civilization soon to vanish in WWI.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

Starred review from November 15, 2013

In 1914, the world went to war. Called "the war to end all wars," the conflict set the stage for many wars that followed. Was a global conflagration inevitable? Could it have been avoided? While historians have argued these questions for decades, Emmerson (senior research fellow, Royal Inst. for Intl. Affairs, London; The Future History of the Arctic) takes a different approach. Instead of reexamining all the classic causal explanations that came after the first shot was fired, he looks at the world (not just Europe) in the year before the war. Through the lens of contemporary travelers, journalists, politicians, heads of state, and writers from 20 cities, readers get a very real sense of the political, social, and economic events and mood of the period. Beginning and ending with London and including Paris, New York, Bombay, Buenos Aires, Constantinople, and Tokyo, this is a fascinating bird's-eye view of a landscape seen in what was the dying light of empire and on the brink of tragedy. The mood of the time reads as both sadly sensing doom and being naively hopeful. VERDICT An imaginatively conceived, thoroughly researched, and outstandingly written perspective that is highly recommended for both academic and general readers.--Linda Frederiksen, Washington State Univ. Lib., Vancouver

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