The full title is "Dreadnaught: Britain, Germany, And The Coming Of The Great War" and its IBN number is 0-345-37556-4.

This book from the author of "Nicholas And Alexandra" and "Peter The Great" is the finest book I've read detailing the events and interplays that led to WWI since Barbara Tuchman's "The Guns Of August".

Massie has written a richly textured and gripping chronicle of the personal and national rivalries that led to the twentieth century's first great arms race. The author shows a biographer's rare genius for expressing the essence of extraordinary lives and brings to life a crowd of glittering figures: the single-minded Admiral von Tirpitz; the young, ambitious Winston Churchill; the ruthless, sycophantic Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow; Britain's greatest twentieth century Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey; and Jacky Fisher, the eccentric admiral who revolutionized the British Navy and brought forth the first true battleship, H.M.S. Dreadnaught.

Their story, and the story of that era, filled with misunderstandings, missed opportunities, and events leading to unintended conclusions, unfolds like a Greek tragedy. This is history at its most riveting. If you want to understand where the world is today, you can do no better than to read this book for all the power plays we're living with today have their roots right in this narrative.

That was an awesome description.