An amazing book review of 'The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914' by Christopher Clark, whose book is contrasted with Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August, which had an impact on JFK and didn't mention Serbia much.

Try this passage:
Christopher Clark’s breathtakingly good book is, much more self-consciously than Tuchman’s, also a history for its – that is, our – times. An act of terrorism in Sarajevo – the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne and his wife – led the Austrian government to make demands on Serbia. If not quite a terror state, Serbia had close links to terrorism and made no effort to hide its view that Austria had it coming. The boundaries between official state policy, the army and clandestine terrorist cells were blurred at best. The Serbian prime minister, Nikola Pašić, may not have planned the assassination but he clearly knew about it in some detail and failed to pass on any but the most vague – in today’s terms ‘not actionable’ – warnings to Austria. Serbia had something to answer for.
It's value today:
The Sleepwalkers is also a book for our time in its emphasis on contingency and the role of what Clark calls the multiple ‘mental maps’ in the decisions that were taken.
Might ask this book is for Xmas, even if it is 697 pgs.

Link:http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n23/thomas-...-foolish-thing