Sleepwalking to disaster

In the blurb for Christopher Clark’s forthcoming book, The Sleepwalkers: How Europe went to war in 1914, (Allen Lane), he suggests

‘Europe was racked by chronic problems: a multipolar, fractured, multicultural world of clashing ideals, terrorism, militancy and instability, which was, fatefully, saddled with a conspicuously ineffectual set of political leaders. He shows how the rulers of Europe, who prided themselves on their modernity and rationalism, behaved like sleepwalkers, stumbling through crisis after crisis…’

Now doesn’t that sound familiar!