I also didn't know we could recommend general history. I would suggest the Strachan treatment (just called The First World War) of the subject, as well as Martin Gilbert's history with a similar if not identical name, the Tuchman books you mentioned (as well as The Proud Tower, which is sold together with The Guns of August in one volume by the Library of America), and even Jack Beatty's The Lost History of 1914, though that last book was not as rigorous (or well edited) as I would have liked.
I have the Tuchman in the LoA edition and plan on reviewing that as well. Also am planning on writing about Modris Ekstein's Rites of Spring, which deals with WWI as a form of Modernism, among other things. Probably will also discuss an old professor's book on the Eastern Front, War Land on the Eastern Front. I'm thinking of the Tuchman as a classic in discussing the origins of the war and the other two as cultural studies of the war.
Je suis méchant.
