‘This is first class history and in a year swamped with First World War centenary books, it’s the one you should read first’

The Trigger

Author: Tim Butcher

RRP: $39.99 - Chatto & Windus

Trade Paperback

‘A fascinating study of one of those rare individuals whose act of violence changed the history of the world. An incisive, shrewd, wholly compelling investigation of an assassin’s life and times’

— William Boyd

Nearly 100 years after the outbreak of the First World War, former Balkan war correspondent Tim Butcher retraces the journey of Gavrilo Princip — the teenage assassin who killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, setting the war in motion — and illuminates our understanding of one of the most misrepresented figures in modern history and how his Bosnian homeland continues to impact global history.

‘This is first class history and in a year swamped with First World War centenary books, it’s the one you should read first’ — Andrew Roberts

The author retraces Princip’s journey from his home village, through the mountains of the northern Balkans to the great plain city of Belgrade and ultimately Sarajevo. On his journey Tim makes discoveries about Princip that have eluded historians for a hundred years, meets relatives still living in the village and draws on his own experiences there as a reporter during the 1990s war. As he tracks down the ghosts of past wars, Tim also faces his own memories of his first experience of war. In telling the story of this young man who changed the world forever, Tim unravels this complex part of the world and its conflicts, and shows how the events that were sparked that day in June 1914 have echoes that can still be heard today.