The Trigger is a rich and timely work that brings to life both the moment the world first went to war and an extraordinary region with a potent hold over history. Tim uncovers details about Princip that have eluded historians for a century and draws on his own experience, as a war reporter in the Balkans in the 1990s, to face down ghosts of conflicts past and present. By retracing Princip’s journey from his highland birthplace, through the mythical valleys of Bosnia to the fortress city of Belgrade and ultimately Sarajevo, Tim Butcher illuminates our understanding both of Princip and the places that shaped him. As he ventured across fault lines of faith, nationalism and empire, so tightly clustered in the Balkans, radicalisation slowly transformed him from a frail farm boy into history’s most influential assassin.

Born a penniless backwoodsman, Princip’s life changed when he trekked through Bosnia and Serbia to attend school. The Trigger puts this right, filling out as never before a figure who changed our world and whose legacy still has an impact on all of us today. Yet the events Princip triggered were so monumental that his own story has been largely overlooked, his role garbled and motivations misrepresented. Published for the centenary of the assassination, The Trigger is a rich and timely work, part travelogue, part reportage, and part history.On a summer morning in Sarajevo a hundred years ago, a teenage assassin named Gavrilo Princip fired not just the opening shots of the First World War but the starting gun for modern history, when he killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Traveling through the Balkans on Princip's trail, and drawing on his own experiences there as a war reporter during the 1990s, Butcher unravels this complex part of the world and its conflicts, and shows how the events that were sparked that day in June 1914 still have influence today. By retracing his steps from the feudal frontier village of his birth, through the mountains of the northern Balkans to the great plain city of Belgrade, and ultimately to Sarajevo, Tim Butcher illuminates our understanding of Princip and makes discoveries about him that have eluded historians for a hundred years. The Trigger: Hunting the Assassin Who Brought the World to War review Tim Butcher brings his own experience of Yugoslavian conflict to bear on this revelatory portrait of Archduke Franz. It focuses on the drama of the incident itself by following Princip's journey. The Trigger tells the story of a young man who changed the world forever.

By killing Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Gavrilo Princip started a cycle of events that would leave 15 million dead from fighting between 19 and that proved fatal for empires and a way of ruling that had held for centuries.

On a summer morning in Sarajevo almost a hundred years ago, a teenager took a pistol out of his pocket and fired not just the opening rounds of the First World War but the starting gun for modern history.

The Trigger by Tim Butcher