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  1. #1
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914

    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
    davidbfpo

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    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default Listen to and read Professor Clark

    I read this book in E-format (Kobo) over Christmas flying to and back from the USA. Simply a great read.

    Two weeks ago I heard Professor Clark give a lecture locally; not only was he erudite, he was entertaining and as it was not recorded the link is to a lecture he gave in Oslo (40 mins):http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1yJo-g5cH8

    Having last read about the 1914 crisis forty years ago, yes Barbara Tuchman's 'The Guns of August', it was refreshing to learn that today the passage of time has enabled him to see new perspectives. Plus 'war guilt' is not such a potent force. New or neglected sources have been found, two French and one Belgian in particular.
    davidbfpo

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    Council Member Firn's Avatar
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    My personal reading time has been eaten up by more important stuff but I will give it a go soon.

    I really enjoyed the Oslo lecture. The introduction brought you right into back in time and space, moving at the size of the couple. He gave excellent arguments why he tried hard to focus first on 'how it happened?' instead of jumping too quickly to the 'why?'. The complexity of the conflicting internal politics meshed with the play of personalities and the changable foreign relationships was well presented. No much monolithic* there but a great deal of chance. The powerful influence of such a big terror event was justly linked to 9/11 with surprisingly close relationships between both types of terrorists/freedom fighters.

    All in all he is able to map out a wide net of paths and relationships in which extremely easily something or a combination of different events could have caused history to walk down a different path. Tracking back such a historical path makes one highly susceptible to look at a chain of events as the only de-velopment.

    *I read a bit about reader responses to the Swiss initiative and it is just amazing how easily many fall into the same trap. You get highly voted stuff like how the wise Swiss voter upheld the true Swiss ideas and rightly told the EU off, as if the big majority (not to say all) Swiss voted that way. In fact it was a extremely close call, with a higher turnout in the 'Yes' cantons. A small difference in weather, an important Olympic race, an EU interview less and so forth could have easily changed the result.
    ... "We need officers capable of following systematically the path of logical argument to its conclusion, with disciplined intellect, strong in character and nerve to execute what the intellect dictates"

    General Ludwig Beck (1880-1944);
    Speech at the Kriegsakademie, 1935

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    Council Member AdamG's Avatar
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    I'll expect NASA to announce that they've spotted the Loc-Nar in orbit again, laughing at our species.


    Why Ukraine Conflict Could Look Like World War I
    http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ukr...d-war-i-n58776
    A scrimmage in a Border Station
    A canter down some dark defile
    Two thousand pounds of education
    Drops to a ten-rupee jezail


    http://i.imgur.com/IPT1uLH.jpg

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    Council Member Condor's Avatar
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    I really want to read this book. Keep waiting for a copy of it to show up in the local used book store.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Condor View Post
    I really want to read this book. Keep waiting for a copy of it to show up in the local used book store.
    If you're holding out on Amazon you're a better man than I.

    I think there was another recent book that served as a counterpoint to Clark's, maybe Max Hastings'.

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