in 1909 wrote a book explaining that war wean the major powers was so costly as to the unimaginable. the great illusion became an international best seller. a few years later a generation of europeans was destroyed in the carnage of world war i. could we be similarly complacent today? there are serious states men who believe so. he said i don't want to belong to a generation of sleepwalkers that have forgotten its own past. as he wrote in his book the states men of 1914 stumbled into a world war without ever realizing the magnitude of the dangers of their isolated decisions and nondecisions. he is not simply talking.