The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman (Macmillan, 1962)
First published in 1962 and never out of print since, The Guns of August (titled in the UK simply August 1914) by the late American historian Barbara Tuchman has become the classic narrative history of the outbreak of the First World War. Military history had traditionally been the jealously guarded exclusive preserve of male historians, often ex soldiers, so to have a woman writing brilliant, colourful and authoritative history that was well-researched into the bargain came as something of a shock.