The Sleepwalkers

In the summer of 1914 Europe went to war, and Australian historian Christopher Clark sets out to explain how. He argues that no single country bears sole blame and that each power unwittingly stumbled into the conflict, a view at odds with the Fischer thesis, which holds Germany mainly responsible. The first of three parts follows the Balkans from the 1903 regicide in Belgrade to the Sarajevo assassination. The second examines how the major powers formed two alliance blocs between 1887 and 1914, and the third covers the July Crisis. Clark concludes that the war came from a chain of decisions, none of them inevitable. First published in 2012, it sold more than 350,000 copies in its German edition.

Sam Altman called it a really good book and said it had been on his mind as he watched events in Ukraine unfold.