The Sleepwalkers

ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- Clark's book is in-depth yet very approachable, getting into the personalities and geo-political positions that lay behind the decisions that were made, such as England's decision to enter the war. Each nation had its hawks and doves and the threads of events need to be carefully unpicked.

As you make your way through the book, each reader will weight the actions and attitudes of the key players differently. I came away with the observations that Russia's provocative mobilisation was perhaps the single most important flashpoint. Taken as being a declaration of war, it was a point of no return, provoking a matching response from Germany. The other observation that comes out strongly is the absolute disaster of issuing ultimatums when it comes to diplomatic relations, of which both Austria and Germany were prone to do.

A captivating and thorough background to the monumental tragedy of this war for anyone really wanting to understand how sane people could take the actions they did, and essential reading for anyone with an eye on current geo-political developments. Craig Kirchner

In recent decades, many analysts had tended to put most blame for the disaster [of the First World War] on Germany. Clark strongly renews an older interpretation which sees the statesmen of many countries as blundering blindly together into war -- Stephen Howe * Independent BOOKS OF THE YEAR * Clark is fully alive to the challenges of the subject ... He provides vivid portraits of leading figures ... [He] also gives a rich sense of what contemporaries believed was at stake in the crises leading up to the war * Irish Times * A brilliant contribution * Times Higher Education * This compelling examination of the causes of World War I deserves to become the new standard one-volume account of that contentious subject * Foreign Affairs * Clark is a masterly historian ... His account vividly reconstructs key decision points while deftly sketching the context driving them ... A magisterial work * Wall Street Journal * A meticulously researched, superbly organized, and handsomely written account * Military History * Superb ... One of the great mysteries of history is how Europe's great powers could have stumbled into World War I ... This is the single best book I have read on this important topic -- Fareed Zakaria A monumental new volume ... Revelatory, even revolutionary ... Clark has done a masterful job explaining the inexplicable * Boston Globe * Superb ... effectively consigns the old historical consensus to the bin ... It's not often that one has the privilege of reading a book that reforges our understanding of one of the seminal events of world history * Mail Online * Impeccably researched, provocatively argued and elegantly written ... a model of scholarship * Sunday Times Books of the Year * [Reading The Sleepwalkers], it is as if a light had been turned on a half-darkened stage of shadowy characters cursing among themselves without reason ... [Clark] demolishes the standard view ... The brilliance of Clark's far-reaching history is that we are able to discern how the past was genuinely prologue ... In conception, steely scholarship and piercing insights, his book is a masterpiece -- Harold Evans * New York Times Book Review * A lovingly researched work of the highest scholarship. It is hard to believe we will ever see a better narrative of what was perhaps the biggest collective blunder in the history of international relations -- Niall Ferguson Easily the best book ever written on the subject ... A work of rare beauty that combines meticulous research with sensitive analysis and elegant prose. The enormous weight of its quality inspires amazement and awe ... Academics should take note: Good history can still be a good story * Washington Post * Formidable ... one of the most impressive and stimulating studies of the period ever published -- Max Hastings * Sunday Times *