The Sleepwalkers

Outline

The Sleepwalkers (2012) explains how Europe went to war in 1914. Christopher Clark traces the complex web of alliances, rivalries, and decisions among the great powers in the years before the First World War, and shows how leaders on all sides, uncertain and short-sighted, stumbled into a catastrophe none of them fully intended. The book is widely praised as a masterful work of history.

• The First World War grew out of a tangled web of alliances, rivalries and decisions among the great powers.
• Leaders on every side were uncertain and short-sighted, and none of them fully intended the catastrophe that followed.
• Europe's road to war in 1914 was a series of stumbles, not the plan of one aggressor.
• Nationalism, alliances and political misjudgements together carried Europe toward disaster while its leaders failed to see it coming.

Christopher Clark is an Australian historian and professor at the University of Cambridge who specialises in the history of Prussia and modern Europe. He has received major awards for his scholarship and was knighted for his services to Anglo-German relations. His books include Iron Kingdom, The Sleepwalkers, and Revolutionary Spring.