The Sorrow of 'The Pity of War'
A recent televisual account of the First World War leaves Paul Lay feeling underwhelmed.
Christopher Clark’s The Sleepwalkers, the Australian-born Cambridge historian’s scholarly account of the origins of the First World War, is nearing sales of almost 200,000 copies in Germany. That is an extraordinary achievement for any history book, especially one that, despite the clarity of its prose, no one can pretend to be an easy or a short read. Its popularity may owe something to the German appetite for challenging writing: compare the content and form of Germany’s heavyweight newspapers – Die Zeit, Die Welt – with even the broadest of British broadsheets.
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