{"product_id":"the-sleepwalkers-9780141027821","title":"The Sleepwalkers","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe pacy, sensitive and formidably argued history of the causes of the First World War, from acclaimed historian and author Christopher Clark\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eFINANCIAL TIMES \u003c\/i\u003eBOOKS OF THE YEAR 2014\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eSUNDAY TIMES\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eINDEPENDENT \u003c\/i\u003eBOOKS OF THE YEAR 2012\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWinner of the \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times \u003c\/i\u003eHistory Book Prize 2014\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe 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? \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eThe Sleepwalkers\u003c\/i\u003e Christopher Clark retells the story of the outbreak of the First World War \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFormidable ... one of the most impressive and stimulating studies of the period ever published -- Max Hastings * Sunday Times *\u003cbr\u003eEasily 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 *\u003cbr\u003eA 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\u003cbr\u003e[Reading \u003ci\u003eThe Sleepwalkers\u003c\/i\u003e], 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 *\u003cbr\u003eImpeccably researched, provocatively argued and elegantly written ... a model of scholarship * Sunday Times Books of the Year *\u003cbr\u003eSuperb ... 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 *\u003cbr\u003eA monumental new volume ... Revelatory, even revolutionary ... Clark has done a masterful job explaining the inexplicable * Boston Globe *\u003cbr\u003eSuperb ... 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\u003cbr\u003eA meticulously researched, superbly organized, and handsomely written account * Military History *\u003cbr\u003eClark is a masterly historian ... His account vividly reconstructs key decision points while deftly sketching the context driving them ... A magisterial work * Wall Street Journal *\u003cbr\u003eThis compelling examination of the causes of World War I deserves to become the new standard one-volume account of that contentious subject * Foreign Affairs *\u003cbr\u003eA brilliant contribution * Times Higher Education *\u003cbr\u003eClark 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 *\u003cbr\u003eIn 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 *\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Penguin Books Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49399847944535,"sku":"9780141027821","price":17.09,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780141027821.jpg?v=1730468905","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/the-sleepwalkers-9780141027821","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}