Professor Margaret MacMillan interviewed about parallels between today's global politics and the two World Wars

Margaret MacMillan has been interviewed for the 'Saturday Extra' programme on ABC Australia's Radio National station (30 July) in an episode entitled 'Avoiding the mistakes of the '30s'.

When asked if, as in the lead up to the 1914 World War, things can go wrong very quickly if certain cultural warning signs are missed, Margaret pointed out that it only took 5 weeks after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand for the whole of Europe to be engulfed in war, and that this happened in a climate where no one was expecting it and most Europeans felt that the continent had moved way beyond those sorts of wars.

The full programme can be heard here: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/saturdayextra/making-sense-of-the-world/7670192