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A review by socraticgadfly
The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 by Christopher Clark
5.0
Simply fantastic book about the run-up to World War I.
Things I learned include:
1. The Triple Entente, especially from the British angle, was not exclusively an anti-German grouping, and was "unstable" at times up close to the assassination of Franz Ferdinand.
2. Even more than I knew before, the governmental organization of the Dual Monarchy was rickety. (I knew that many ministries were dual, but until reading this book, did not realize it had dual prime ministers, which was part of the delay of formulating its response to Serbia.)
3. The idea of sole war guilt for Germany is ridiculous, given that Russia had given as much a blank check to Serbia as Germany did to Austria.
4. The Serb history of thuggery makes me want to believe in "cultural DNA."
5. British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey made a number of quasi-guarantees to France that he never told the Cabinet about, let alone Liberals as a body.
That's just a sampling of a great book.
Things I learned include:
1. The Triple Entente, especially from the British angle, was not exclusively an anti-German grouping, and was "unstable" at times up close to the assassination of Franz Ferdinand.
2. Even more than I knew before, the governmental organization of the Dual Monarchy was rickety. (I knew that many ministries were dual, but until reading this book, did not realize it had dual prime ministers, which was part of the delay of formulating its response to Serbia.)
3. The idea of sole war guilt for Germany is ridiculous, given that Russia had given as much a blank check to Serbia as Germany did to Austria.
4. The Serb history of thuggery makes me want to believe in "cultural DNA."
5. British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey made a number of quasi-guarantees to France that he never told the Cabinet about, let alone Liberals as a body.
That's just a sampling of a great book.