Sleepwalking Into World War I

War against Iran is an all too real possibility Big Oil, Israel’s fascist Likud regime and the greedy conflict profiteers of the military-industrial complex have all got their bought-and-paid for politicians and media elite clamouring for confrontation. So it’s a good time to remember just how easy it is for regional tensions to spill over into full-scale and devastating World War.

This fascinating lecture explores new ways of understanding the crisis that brought war to Europe in the summer of 1914; reflects on some of the problems of interpretation that have dogged the debate over the war’s origins; and considers the contemporary resonance of a catastrophe that is now nearly a century old.