I have read Sidney Fay's two volume work on the causes of World War One, as well as Albertini's three volumes--and many other books on the subject as well. For somebody who does not want to spend weeks reading, this great book covers the topic most lucidly and can be read in a few hours. It is true that it is now over 35 years since it was published, but for sound reasoning and clear exposition I think this book is hard to beat. A couple weeks ago I read L. C. F. Turner's Origins of the First World War, which came out in 1970 and while I enjoyed the reading I do believe this book, while only a little longer, does a better job explaining why Austria and Serbia are the principal ones to blame for the war, and that the murder at Sarajevo was a real cause of the war, not merely the occasion for it.