The War of the World by Niall Ferguson just astounding, almost every page has some obscure detail of some event in some war that the west was ever involved with from 1900 to 1999, so huge an undertaking surely you would need a team of researchers buckets of coffee and mountains of cupcakes. No western nation is left out Americans British French Germans Russians are all well covered but far more indepth examinations of the Germans and Russians with whole sections outlined. Other smaller western nations are briefly mentioned. Clearly facts told then all these nations are all guilty of some horrendous war atrocity just curiously numbers killed escalates the further east you travel. The connections and relationships between these events and underlying inhumanity bound them all together in what all participants believe is right and justified killings when you put on fish bowl glasses this absolutely ridiculous and mental really. Humans can fall into hatred and murderous warfare so quickly we are a menace to ourselves without a doubt. Is there any hope in the 21st century with nuclear annihilation but greater seriousness is nations nuclear proliferation 24 nations and counting this hanging like a noose around our necks let's go with hope but hopelessness is a hair width behind. We really don't need mountains of wealth just mountains of purpose look after each other start in your house then spread out. Anyway after these statements I need to find sand so I can bury my head in it. Tidbits When did the War of the World end? Perhaps the best answer is July 27, 1953, when the armistice was signed that ended the Korean War. Why did that conflict peter out, rather than escalate into a global conflict between the superpowers? One tempting explanation is that the exponential increase in destructive power that began with the first atomic test raised the stakes too high to permit a full-scale conflict. Tidbits How can you make a revolution without firing squads?’ Lenin asked. ‘If we can’t shoot a White Guard saboteur, what sort of great revolution is it? Nothing but talk and a bowl of mush. Tidbit No one can know the future, least of all, a historian, whose business is the past.

В най-известната си книга Стивън Пинкър твърди, че насилието в глобален мащаб намалява. Историкът Нийл Фъргюсън не би се съгласил. Според него столетието след 1900 г. е най-кървавото в човешката история. За да ни убеди, той проследява ключови събития от началото на Бел Епок до края на Втората световна война.

Заглавието на книгата е вдъхновено от романа на Хърбърт Уелс - "Войната на световете", в който марсианци нападат Земята, но накрая самите те биват унищожени от бактериите, към които не са се приспособили. Тезата на Нийл Фъргюсън е, че въобще не са нужни извънземни за допускането на масово насилие и смърт. Хората са напълно достатъчни. Основна идея в книгата е, че насилието е провокирано от етнически различия в рамките на национални държави. Неслучайно най-кървавите места на двадесети век са били региони със смесване на значителни малцинства - Полша, Украйна, Балканите, Манчурия. Интересно е, че историкът многократно отхвърля термина раса като биологичен феномен, какъвто е и научния консенсус. Много близки генетично групи от хора се избиват взаимно. Различията между отделните индивиди в самата група често са по-големи от междугруповите такива.

Във "Войната на света" се анализират ключови събития от двадесети век - двете световни войни, Холокоста, граждански войни, бомбардировки на цивилно население, показни убийства на исторически личности с огромни последици - Франц Фердинанд (Първа световна война), Ернст фон Рат ("кристална" нощ), но се споменават и малко познати герои, спасили хора под огромен натиск - Чиуне Сугихара (японски дипломат в Литва, издавал визи за емигриране на евреи), Джон (Йон) Рабе - "добрият нацист" от Нанкинг, защитил местното население в германското посолство от сигурна смърт в ръцете на японската армия.

На моменти книгата е прекалено англоцентрична, но това е донякъде разбираемо. Със сигурност има какво да научите с оглед на сериозния обем, посветен на дълъг исторически период. И не забравяйте, че хората са способни, както на невиждана жестокост, така и на неподозиран героизъм, особено в най-критичните ситуации.

A compelling and cohesive account of the causes and effects of worldwide violence that defined the 20th century. It points to economic depression, ethnic division, and imperialism as the dark brew that caused international bloodshed. As mentioned in my review of the previous book, Niall’s talent rests in both knowing when to zoom and out as well as which stories illustrate wider concepts. I need more historical knowledge to assess him as a historian.

I have now read four of Mr. Ferguson's works, the others being Empire, Colossus, and The Ascent of Money, and this one is by far his best work (although, Empire was great too). No other book on WWII has done what this one has done: explained WHY WWII happened and WHY it was so violent. All other books explain HOW WWII transpired, but this one cuts right to the meat of the matter. The results and conclusions are devastating to anyone with a firm belief in humanity's central goodness. Mr. Ferguson shows how every nation involved in the war was also involved in some sort of crime that goes against the idealistic rules of war. Not even America is spared from being tagged with war crimes, as the carpet and fire bombings of civilian culminating in the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki show. This book gives further proof that war, even a necessary war like WWII, is still a blight upon mankind. Any person opposed to war purely on moral and idealistic grounds would do well to read this book and use its analysis and conclusions as a part of their argument. In short, this is a necessary book to be read by anyone interested not just in WWII, but in 20th century history and conflict and in discovering the true depths of human depravity, which are, to judge from Mr. Ferguson's work, staggering. Not only that, but certain parallels to today's world should make everyone concerned about the potentials of a "Second War of the World."

The twentieth century was (among other things) an appalling exercise in mass murder, with two world wars and a fifty-year succession of proxy wars that was termed a cold war, resulting in hundreds of millions of deaths. In this fat volume (published in 2006) British historian Niall Ferguson tackles the question of what went wrong.
It covers much of the same ground as Paul Johnson's massive Modern Times, another excellent survey of the disastrous century, but with a particular focus on the role played by collapsing empires. Ferguson highlights the way in which the need for natural resources drove the industrialized nations to colonize less developed regions in the course of the nineteenth century; those powers that came up short in the scramble for empire (Germany, Japan) felt they had to play catch-up. The other crucial element in the catastrophe was racism, and Ferguson devotes a good deal of attention to the way in which ethnic differences were exploited, often with pseudo-scientific nonsense, to dehumanize targeted peoples. His accounts of atrocities are detailed and disturbing; the cruelty and the scale of the crimes are almost beyond belief. He does not excuse the ones committed by the victors (like the British and American bombing campaigns that deliberately targeted German and Japanese civilians). He gives this summation of his thesis: "To repeat: economic volatility very often provides the trigger for the politicization of ethnic difference. Proximity to a strategic borderland, usually an imperial border, determines the extent to which the violence will metastasize."
There you have it. The rest of the six-hundred-plus pages is detail and documentation. It's not a pretty picture. But it is excellent history, for the general reader who wants to understand why the last century was so ghastly.

Este libro ofrece una visión bastante orgánica acerca del origen de los grandes conflictos de la primera mitad del siglo XX. La argumentación parte de tres premisas: tanto las dos guerras mundiales como los conflictos que les preceden se catalizan por 1)Conflictos étnicos, 2) conflictos económicos y 3) Sobretodo, por la decadencia de los grandes imperios que al perder su hegemonia desatan las diferencias que hasta entonces estuvieron contenidas en un solo gran estado.
Sin embargo, su tercera y más importante premisa se basa en una visión demasiado maniquea de las relaciones entre culturas (west/rest).

Great robin. Harrowing.

Interesting exploration of 20th century conflict that forces the reader to think about what they “know”. The author ultimately emphasizes ethnic conflict, economic volatility, and imperial decline as essential factors driving the violence of the 20th century.

In addition the author notes the 20th century saw a shift in global power dynamics away from the West towards the East. While the author touches on this and frames his discussion of the War of the World through this lens the reader can be left unsatisfied with the authors failure to fully address where this goes moving forward. That said this book is really a look back and exploration of the causes of conflict to help avoid them in the future and not a deep analysis of East/West balance of power.

Recommended reading for anyone wishing to understand why the 20th century was so violent.

Well written, but Ferguson never really gets around to the "descent of the West" part of the book. The story is mostly a boiled down account of the first half of the 20th century with less than novel emphasis on the idea that much of the conflict was in fact ethnically driven and that even the victors did not come away from the era with clean hands.

What is the global significance of the two World Wars? What should we learn from the 1900s?

Much more than a dry chronicle about what happened, all-star historian Niall Ferguson dives into the importance and context of it all. His thesis is that the world wars erupted because of unstable economies, decaying empires, and ethnic conflict. It is a sober reminder that these problems are consistent with history and human nature.

There is a lot to reflect upon, but here are some points I liked:

- The history of racism and anti-Semitism. It was much more widespread than just the Nazis, although of course they took it to extreme levels. Some of it was unexpected, like Germans accusing Czechs as being "Half-humans"...thank goodness science has disproven these awful theories.

- How self-determination was doomed to fail because of so much ethnic rivalry within countries (not just in the Balkans). Also, war actions led to appeasement before WWII, not the other way around.

- How fascism was alike and different across regimes. Fascism = nationalism + socialism + war.

- Japan's WWII regime: their Yamato Race was the “leading race” of Asia whose mission was to “liberate the billion people of Asia", and all the world's oceans were to be renamed the "Great Sea of Japan” = all oceans

- How bombing vastly changed war tactics and deaths in WWII.

- 31 million Europeans were uprooted from their homes in WWII, and 13 million ethnic Germans (across Europe). Wow! An estimated 2 million German women were raped by the Soviets.

- How the Holocaust was ethically worse than the nuclear bombs...interesting discussion.

I also liked the book’s set up as it goes from pre-WWI to the Cold War (briefly in the epilogue). An awesome book all around!

Ferguson attempts to address the question of what made the 20th C so bloody with a surprising hypothesis. He says that racism and ethnic hostilities were the culprit, triggered by economic volatility and declining empires. He then, beginning with WWI and ending in current times but focusing mostly on WWII, describes the ethnic and racist aspects of major wars, minor wars, wars within wars, internal wars of totalitarian regimes, etc.

He calls his premise a hypothesis, and he makes a good start at demonstrating it, but I feel he has a way to go to prove it. I think his triggers may be necessary but not sufficient to set off ethnic violence. He neglects to explore the very real role played by ideology, created myths, and propaganda in creating the ground for the violence. He settles for human nature as being sufficient. Again, necessary, but not sufficient.

He points out that an aspect of the lethality is the 20th C ability of people to dehumanize their enemies, seeing them as sub-human, vermin, insects, allowing killing with impunity, barbarity and atrocities without conscience. This is something, along with ideology and the cultural groundwork prior to his triggers, which if explored more thoroughly would have bolstered his thesis.

Not all his cited examples are convincing. It's difficult to see ethnic tensions as a primary aspect of Mao's murderous various revolutions, or even much of a contributor to the millions killed. One needs to look at each example given and analyze it in context to see if the violence was primarily ethnically or racially motivated. Giving evidence that ethnicity was one aspect, or suspected aspect, doesn't mean that it contributed that much. In some cases, of course, it's pretty clear. In others one needs to analyze further. At the same time, he almost contradicts himself when showing how "ethnic" violence occurs between people who are not really of different ethnicities. Again, it calls for looking at deeper reasons as I've suggested.

Ferguson is readable, interesting, usually a clear thinker. He documents his work well with charts and graphs, copious endnotes and an equally abundant bibliography. I gained insights into things I'd not found elsewhere, and appreciated some of the subtleties he presented. I think his thesis is well worth considering and exploring further. But in my mind he hasn't yet displaced ideology and advancing technology as the primary causes of the bloodiness of the 20th C. Still, a worthwhile book to read, and a hypothesis worth considering, even if it needs further work and analysis.

An excellent analysis of the conflicts of the 20th century. I wish more maps were included, to help grasping the described strategic moves more easily. I also felt that some of the most iconic events are often mentioned only superficially, assuming the reader knows the details... which I didn't, which is why it took me so long to read! I had to complement the reading with further research... Anyway, it was very interesting to read the book at this time because of the obvious parallels that can be drawn with the current situation...