The Sleepwalkers — Christopher Clark

Clark's account of how Europe went to war in 1914 is the most significant reassessment of the July Crisis in a generation. Rejecting the standard German-guilt narrative established at Versailles and embedded in historical consciousness by Fritz Fischer, he distributes responsibility more widely — examining how decision-makers in Belgrade, Vienna, St Petersburg, Paris, and London each contributed to an outcome that none of them fully intended or understood. The title is precise: the leaders of 1914 did not march into war with their eyes open. They sleepwalked, each following a logic that made sense in isolation and was catastrophic in combination.

Winner of the Körber Prize for European History. 'A landmark work of historical scholarship. The Sleepwalkers is the new standard account of how the First World War began.' — The Guardian. 'Magisterial.' — New York Review of Books