Perhaps it was because of the recent 100th anniversary of the "Great War" or my re-reading of Barbara Tuchman's classic, The Guns of August, but as I sat on my back deck, on an absolutely wonderful day, a chill crept up my spine. The kind of feeling you get from free-floating anxiety bubbling up from your subconscious when the phone rings at 3 am. Tuchman's opening chapters are a sort of halcyonic travelog around a self-satisfied Europe. A Europe at peace with itself: optimistic, enjoying a summer of blissful weather. Ah, but the reader knows better. The cracks were already widening into the iron maw of total industrialized warfare. One sees the dead men walking on the golden strands of Paris, London, Vienna, and Berlin, so unaware, so ripe for the slaughter to come. Nine million of them enjoying the last summer of peace and prosperity. What was worse (if there is anything worse than 30 million overall dead) was the loss of the innocent assumption of progress...(Read Full Article)