The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914

On the morning of June 28, 1914, when Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophia arrived at the Sarajevo train station, Europe was still at peace. Thirty-seven days later, a war broke out that would claim the lives of more than a dozen million people, destroy a number of empires, and radically change the course of world history.

In The Sleepwalkers, the events leading up to World War I unfold almost minute by minute, in a dynamic narrative between Vienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Paris, London, and Belgrade. Cambridge University history professor Christopher Clarke traces how decades of diplomatic blunders, misunderstandings, and false signals transformed Europe into an unstable and militarized space where would-be enemies could still become allies, and allies could still become enemies. The rulers, who declared their loyalty to modernity and rationality, could not prevent the catastrophe and, in the end, convinced themselves and others that war was the only way out.

Based on deep analysis and brilliantly written, this book is one of the most influential works on the history of the First World War. The Ukrainian edition of "The Sleepwalkers" returns the Great War to the national narrative not only as a major event in European history, but also as one of the turning points of our 20th century.

In 2013, "The Sleepwalkers" won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in the "History" category and was included in the list of the ten best books of the year according to The New York Times Book Review.