Inevitably, these anniversaries have given rise to a vast surge of books, far too many to read, much less review, in a single lifetime. From the subterranean war of barbed wire and trenches, poison gas and machine guns, no man’s land and everyman’s grave of World War I to the blood lands and death camps, nationalist furies and totalitarian nightmares of World War II from the collapse of states, from Syria and Iraq to Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, whose borders were drawn in the wake of World War I, to the resurgence of other states, like Russia, now intent on reaffirming older borders, the seismic changes wrought by these wars still rattle the world. The wars ushered in an age in which what was once unthinkable became not just thinkable, but all too normal. While the year, with its many acts of remembrance - regional and national, popular and academic, festive and solemn - has now passed, the world will remain forever changed by the events we have marked.

Twenty-five years ago, the fall of the Berlin Wall signaled what the world believed to be the end of the Cold War. Seventy-five years ago, Europe and much of the rest of the world gave the lie to that earlier war’s justification when France and Great Britain declared war against Nazi Germany, thus ushering in World War II.

One hundred years ago, Europe and much of the rest of the world launched what came to be known as the war to end all wars. 2014 saw a bumper crop in war commemorations.

The sleepwalkers book review