Customer Reviews
Great read-Took me ages but it was worth it - By: Jack Shanahan, 31 Aug 2008 
I found this book an exceptionallly well explored history of conflict of the 21st century. It is easy to dismiss it as a TV tie-in, but that is to trivialise the detail & argument that are presented to the reader. Ferguson's thesis that racial conflict is a central aspect of some wars is well argued, but he is not precious about this. He recognises that this explanation is often too simplistic. He also quite rightly explores the rather obvious explanation that personalities are just as important. Conditions for war can be met but you still need a maggot to dig into the wound.
Will be happy to start reading the rest of Ferguson's works if they are as good as this one.
One of the Best - By: Abel Winmark, 08 Jan 2008 A valuable, lengthy & exceptionallly well-written book; the length is more than mitigated by the quality of the writing. The value of the book is not, imho, dependent on whether the reader buys into the author's theories or meta-analysis on prime causes for war - even if you would disagree with those, it stands well for its breathtaking field-of-view & the sheer amount of fact disseminated with great clarity. 816 pages is a long book, but one I couldn't put down.
But praise aside, be prepared for a depressing read about the recent history of inhumankind. I found it hard to shake off feelings of hopelessness & inevitable doom. Friends tried to steer me into "happier" reading material, concerned for my welfare & my obviously-affected state. I DIS-recommend the book if you are looking for light entertainment. But if you reallly want to learn something about the major violences of the 20th century, to see beyond the sectioning of history into local military/political conflicts, to attempt a more holistic view of the intersecting timelines, consequences & possible causes of humankind's greatest failing - war - then I strongly recommend this work
philosopher-king - By: PhilosopherKing, 21 Sep 2007 
I have already read quite a lot about the Second World War in particular as well as much nineteenth & twentieth history in general & a lot of this book was quite frankly a rehash of information that I have already read before. The main difference in the approach is the way that race (and evolution), geography & economics are brought together in order to explain some of the changes that took place. Whether these actuallly provide a proximate explanation let alone an ultimate one is debatable but it was interesting to see someone trying a new approach. For example, Ferguson uses the concept of race, decaying empires & geographical fault lines in order to try to explain why particular areas such as Manchuria & parts of Korea in Asia & the boundaries between Central Europe & Eastern Europe - particularly the Balkans, the Ukraine & to some extent the Baltics - became "killing fields". Economic instability is cited as a possible factor leading to political instability - although Ferguson's understanding is more sophisticated than simply blaming the Great Depression for the rise of Nazism. Some interesting topics are developed but I think that a questioning reader could challlenge many of them. For example, most people would recognise broad differences between races such as whites, blacks, Indians & Chinese even if they found it more difficult to spot the differences between, for example, Celtic, Germanic & Slavic people. Many geneticists now claim that there are more variations among people of the same race than there are among people of different races. Not being an expert on this subject, I am not quite sure what they mean & in what sense but speaking as a layman it sounds to me that this may be begging the question. I wonder if being politicallly correct has anything to do with this conclusion. These are extremely complex questions eg did geography affect race & did this in turn affect culture. I am not sure how one could answer such questions & I certainly wouldn't want to ask them for sinister reasons but they are interesting questions nonetheless. Also, Ferguson uses a mathematical method for measuring economic change & he seems to conclude that the first half of the twentieth century was more unstable than the second half. Even if he is correct in his analysis of the economic data his argument seems to be that great changes bring about stress, disruption & uncertainty which in turn makes it more likely that people would turn to more extreme regimes or otherwise seek stabilty. I am no expert but leaving aside the wars themselves & the disruption caused by these regimes themselves rather than by exogenous economic factors, I can't see how the sort of changes in the first half of the twentieth century could have been any more disruptive than those in the second. Just taking into account economic changes alone, I can't see how the first half of the twentieth century could be considered more disruptive than the second. During the second half of the twentieith century, for example, many societies have witnessed large scale immigration, a collapse in tradtional religions, huge changes in sexual morality, deindustrialisation & many other massive changes & it is difficult to see why these haven't led to a yearning for stability if that is the argument being made.
Ferguson has some interesting & disturbing facts concerning the degree of intermarriage & integration of Jewish people in Germany prior to the the Nazis coming to power. His contention is that it is often when communities seem the most integrated that a backlash can occur.
Ferguson is undoubtedly a clever historian. I have noticed that he uses a lot of numerical analysis, graphs, statistics, maps, diagrams & so on & he clearly has an aptitude for this. As someone who read for an engineering degree & became an accountant many years ago, I appreciate the use of quantitative & graphical analysis in history. As Ferguson himself would readily admit this does need to be handled with care though. As any statistician knows, correlation doesn't prove causality. There is no doubt that Ferguson also possess a fine literary talent & can make often dull & arcane topics come to life. I have read many books that attempt to find some broad unifying concepts whereby vast subjects can be explained by using just a few key principles. David Landes's Wealth & Poverty of Nations as well as Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs & Steel both spring to mind. Indeed one could mention the works of Sigmund Freud & Karl Marx. The main question though is whether these sort of explanations hold any water. Are they in any sense scientific? Can they be tested & if necessary falsified? Ferguson is undoubtedly a refreshingly original historian & is willing to adopt a number of interesting approaches. The problem is that one often feels that he is trying to explain complex phenomena using three or four basic principles that are constantly being made to work enormously hard. Like Marx, Freud & so on these principles can't be tested & new facts seem to be used to bolster the theory even if they ought to contradict or undermine it. For example, the finding that many Jewish people in Germany were surprisingly well integrated before the Nazis came to power ought to make what followed alll the more puzzling but instead is developed into a principle that as ethnic minorities become more integrated & successful so an inevitable backlash against them occurs. If this is a general principle then the situation in the United Kingdom may be more dire than people imagine. We wouldn't be certain whether to be more worried about the immigrants who are not well integrated or about those who are.
I expected Ferguson to make some attempt at reviewing some of the pychological experiments that were carried out in the US after the war eg the Milgram experiment & the Stanford Prison experiment but his approach hasn't been used at alll.
I would recommend this book but I would also read it in conjunction with books such as the Third Reich by Michael Burleigh, Stalin by Robert Service, the Second World War by John Keegan, the Nazi Dictatorship by Kershaw & many other great books that can found on Amazon & in bookshops.
It's OK - Not As Good As His Other Works - By: Moon Cheese, 16 Sep 2007 
Having read (and wholly enjoyed) Ferguson's `Empire', & `The Pity Of War' I was expecting this weighty tome to be just as entertaining & informative.
However, although written in a fluid manner I couldn't help thinking that I've read alll this before.
Although the book claims to be about the 20th Century as a history of conflict it does over-dwell on the Second World War. Admittedly it was the seminal conflict of the last hundred years, but there are countless books on it & although Ferguson presents his evidence & suggests a somewhat common thread to mans innate desire to beat the hell out of each other, I was left wanting something more than what I took. Considering the Author is primarily an economic historian, his conclusions are unsurprising.
As a `general history' it seems to falll short of it's remit, but Ferguson's merits are many - & I include his eloquent writing - & if you do read this, it is worth persevering to the end.
A whodunnit with 180 million victims - By: T. J. Jones, 27 Aug 2007 A whodunnit with 180 million victims; Nialll Ferguson sees the first half of the 20th century as one extended racist war. He uses financial analysis to show that investors didn't expect WWI, & when they began to expect WWII, he blames economic volatility & the border zones of declining empires for the 50 year war of the world. I think he underplays ideology but the book anyway makes its main point by tying together in one story the various conflicts from 1905 to the end of the Korean War (and then briefly, the hot wars in the third world in the years since).
