The War of the World Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West

by Ferguson, Niall

• ISBN13: 9781594201004
• ISBN10: 1594201005
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-09-21
• Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The

Summary

"The War of the World redefines the Second World War as the central act of an epic fifty-year struggle between rival empires. Far from culminating in the triumph of the West, this struggle was part of an inexorable shift in the global balance of power toward the East. The central question Ferguson poses and answers is why that shift had to be so appallingly violent." "Drawing on a pioneering combination of history, economics and the cutting-edge interdisciplinary study of human violence, The War of the World is a revolutionary reinterpretation of the modern era."--BOOK JACKET.

Author Biography

Niall Ferguson is Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University, and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. The bestselling author of Paper and Iron, The House of Rothschild, The Pity of War, The Cash Nexus, Empire, and Colossus, he also writes regularly for newspapers and magazines all over the world. Since 2003 he has written and presented three highly successful television documentary series for British television: Empire, American Colossus, and, most recently, The War of the World.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	xiii
List of Maps	xvi
Introduction	xxxiii
PART I The Great Train Crash
1 Empires and Races	3	(40)
2 Orient Express	43	(29)
3 Fault Lines	72	(37)
4 The Contagion of War	109	(32)
5 Graves of Nations	141	(48)
PART II Empire-States
6 The Plan	189	(32)
7 Strang Folk	221	(56)
8 An Incidental Empire	277	(35)
9 Defending the Indefensible	312	(33)
10 The Pity of Peace	345	(40)
PART III Killing Space
11 Blitzkrieg	385	(31)
12 Through the Looking Glass	416	(23)
13 Killers and Collaborators	439	(27)
14 The Gates of Hell	466	(39)
PART IV A Tainted Triumph
15 The Osmosis of War	505	(48)
16 Kaputt	553	(43)
Epilogue: The Descent of the West	596	(51)
Appendix: The War of the World in Historical Perspective	647	(8)
Endnotes	655	(62)
Sources and Bibliography	717	(48)
Acknowledgements	765	(4)
Index	769