The War of the World: History’s Age of Hatred by Niall Ferguson
Published by Penguin Books in 2007

The world at the beginning of the 20th century seemed for most of its inhabitants stable and relatively benign. Globalizing, booming economies married to technological breakthroughs seemed to promise a better world for most people. Instead, the 20th century proved to be overwhelmingly the most violent, frightening and brutalized in history with fanatical, often genocidal warfare engulfing most societies between the outbreak of the First World War and the end of the Cold War. What went wrong? How did we do this to ourselves? Niall Ferguson retells the story of history’s most savage century as a continual war that raged for 100 years. From the plains of Poland to the killing fields of Cambodia, he reveals how economic boom-and-bust, decaying empires and, above all, poisonous ideas of race led men to treat each other as aliens. It was an age of hatred that ended with the twilight, not the triumph, of the West. And, he shows, it could happen all over again.

‘A heartbreaking survey of human evil that is utterly fascinating and dramatic’ Simon Sebag Montefiore

‘Unputdownable, controversial, compelling’ Independent on Sunday

‘A great read …One is swept along by the author’s superb clarity of expression and the persuasive verve of his style’ Irish Times

Niall Ferguson is one of Britain’s most renowned historians.

By the same author:
The Cash Nexus: money and power in the modern world, 1700-2000
Colossus: the rise and fall of the American empire
Empire: how Britain made the modern world
The Pity of War

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