The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 Book

In "The Sleepwalkers" acclaimed historian and author of "Iron Kingdom" Christopher Clark examines the causes of the First World War. The moments that it took Gavrilo Princip to step forward to the stalled car and shoot dead Franz Ferdinand and his wife were perhaps the most fateful of the modern era. An act of terrorism of staggering efficiency it fulfilled its every aim: it would liberate Bosnia from Habsburg rule and it created a powerful new Serbia but it also brought down four great empires killed millions of men and destroyed a civilization. What made a seemingly prosperous and complacent Europe so vulnerable to the impact of this assassination? In "The Sleepwalkers" Christopher Clark retells the story of the outbreak of the First World War and its causes. Drawing on many fresh new sources this account reveals a Europe very different from the familiar picture putting Serbia and the Balkans at the centre of the story.Starting with the brutal assassination of Alexander I of Serbia in 1903 Clark shows how far from being the place of enviable stability it appears to us Europe was racked by chronic problems: a multipolar fractured multicultural world of clashing ideals terrorism militancy and instability which was fatefully saddled with a conspicuously ineffectual set of political leaders. He shows how the rulers of Europe who prided themselves on their modernity and rationalism behaved like sleepwalkers stumbling through crisis after crisis and finally convincing themselves that war was the only answer.Read More