How long does it take to read The Sleepwalkers?
The Sleepwalkers by Christopher Clark takes about 13 hours 30 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 13 hours 30 minutes
A week or two of reading
First published 2013. 736 pages, about 202,400 words.
27 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 22 hours 29 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 13 hours 30 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 8 hours 26 minutes |
The page count is the median across 18 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
On the morning of June 28, 1914, when Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie Chotek, arrived at Sarajevo railway station, Europe was at peace. Thirty-seven days later, it was at war. The conflict that resulted would kill more than fifteen million people, destroy three empires, and permanently alter world history. The Sleepwalkers reveals in gripping detail how the crisis leading to World War I unfolded. Drawing on fresh sources, it traces the paths to war in a minute-by-minute, action-packed narrative that cuts among the key decision centers in Vienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Paris, London, and Belgrade. Distinguished historian Christopher Clark examines the decades of history that informed the events of 1914 and details the mutual misunderstandings and unintended signals that drove the crisis forward in a few short weeks. How did the Balkans -- a peripheral region far from Europe's centers of power and wealth -- come to be the center of a drama of such magnitude? How had European nations organized themselves into opposing alliances, and how did these nations manage to carry out foreign policy as a result? Clark reveals a Europe racked by chronic problems -- a fractured world of instability and militancy that was, fatefully, saddled with a conspicuously ineffectual set of political leaders. These rulers, who prided themselves on their modernity and rationalism, stumbled through crisis after crisis and finally convinced themselves that war was the only answer. - Jacket flap.
Subjects: Diplomatic history, Politics and government, Causes, History, War, Krigsorsaker
