The War of the World
by Niall Ferguson
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Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
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Re-interpret C20th violence by Understanding the Causes (2008-02-16)
When history resorts to simple explanations to describe complex circumstances, it makes repeating the mistakes of the past more inevitable, and worthy lessons harder to learn. That is why Niall Ferguson book, The World of the War - Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West, is so compelling. Niall Ferguson addresses with detailed analysis the crucial passages of history: how did Europe descend so precipitously in war in 1914? Why did Germany support Hitler? What was worse , British appeasement of Hitler or the lack of contingency planning? Was there a case for preemptive war in 1938? How could Japan and Germany look invincible in 1942 and lose the war? How important was Britain’s contributions? What circumstances lead to realism in American foreign policy? Why has genocide been repeated over and over again? A fascinating and important account of the Twentieth Century.In the Shadows of History: Ferguson attempts to excuse his hatemongering (2008-01-29)
On January 1, 1958 the Treaty of Rome came into force. The treaty itself joined three European institutions, the ECSC, the EEC and Euroatom into a form of institutional agreement. This institutional agreement, combined with the Bretton Woods economic system and the rights delineated in the Atlantic Charter, hoped to respond to World Wars I & II. World Wars I & II had destroyed Europe and in the 45 years prior to the Treaty of Rome, Europe had known 12 years of total war. The Treaty of Rome was a move away from the competing policies: economically, strategically and politically.
Ferguson’s work covers this previous period of national rivalry on the European continent. Despite its universal sounding name, The War of the World, it really covers the European theater of these two wars and the Inter-bellum. Ferguson determines, in classic realist fashion, this period is merely the highest form of Thucydidesan raw power and Clausewitzian strategic competition mixed with ethnic hatreds in Europe. Ferguson, also, attempts to anticipate counters of his thesis from both Institutional and Constructivist critiques. While the work is well written, there are many holes in his thesis, even with the anticipation of critiques and his own racism cannot but permiate through the work.
Institutionally, Ferguson dismisses the interwar period as many realist do. The League of Nations could not possible solve the problems of the Inter-bellum since it was weak, missing the two most dynamic powers from its deliberations, and since it was basically a Wilsonian pipe-dream. While he is correct that the ambitious League of Nations had many flaws, the real problems stemmed from the actors at the time not fully understanding how International Organizations should work. (This is not really any fault of the statemen of that era, since most of what we know now are because of their trial and era!) Ferguson, therefore, ignores the complexities of international politics and cooperation to use the considerably easier realist perspective - even if its does not account for everything.
Another thing it does not account for is the issue of internal politics and the social constructs which both national politics and worldviews build. In this constructivist approach, Britain will never fight on the side of the continental hegemon, since there is an overriding social belief in Britain that the continent should be divided. Meanwhile, Germans who believe themselves to be the natural leaders of Europe will attempt to bring everyone into their thinking - even by arms. Add to the top of this a rabid anti-semitism and the belief in a master race and you may have problems with Nazis!
The anit-semetism of the Nazis is dealt with especially interestingly in this work. Ferguson does not go out of his way to condemn it really. In fact, he seems to try to excuse it, like conservatives in the US try to excuse slavery today. Ferguson builds a model whereby Nazi anti-semetism is only a capstone to what already existed in Europe. His detailed work on progroms in Poland and Russia/Soviet Union attempt to make it appear that “oh, that’s just what people believed back then.”
He furthers this illiberal viewpoint later in the book. He continues with a “Barbarians at the Gates” mentality. The West is losing ground! And, now there are millions of the unwashed threatening Europe. Not only does he attempt to promote a new Yellow Peril at the end. But also he sees those wishing to imigrate to Europe as a threat. One sees him like U.B. Phillips trying to defend the white people of Europe from this decline!
Despite my major problems with its thesis and politics, I found it a well written, quick read. Nobody can deny Ferguson is a gifted writer, despite being his overtly political views of history from the hatemongering New Right that is sweeping Europe and Asia. His two prior works have promoted the idea that white people can keep “The Browns” in line through imperial ambition: Empire supported the thesis that the British Empire was actually good for the ruled people; and, Collossus argued that the United States should now step up and keep the Brown peoples of the world in-line. His hammer of White imperialism makes every problem look like Brown nails.
Great book on World War 2… (2008-01-24)
…but that’s about it.
The book does start at the year 1900, and does give a good section on the years from 1900-1939, as in why world war two came about, why it was global in scope and incredibly bloody. The concept of wars occurring during years of a country’s robust growth economically (requiring a country to expand its natural resources) as well as years of economic desperation is intriguing. The section on world war two itself is expansive and excellent, with Ferguson sparing no one with criticism, even the Allies.
The downside - this book is not as advertised. It is essentially about world war 2, not twentieth century conflict and combat. The discussion of the Korea war happens briefly, at page 600, in the epilogue! World war one gets a little better treatment, but it obvious where the author’s expertise lies. The author fails to defend his thesis in the introduction, about the bloodiness of the twentieth century. It’s only the bloodiness of the second world war. If he wants to make expansive comments about the twentieth century and the decline of the west, he needs to back it up with more argument and more pages.
So I recommend reading this book, as a world war 2 book only.A brilliant review of mankind’s most difficult century (2008-01-20)
The best longitudinal view of the history of the past century that I have read. Gave me new contexts for many of the events and conflicts I have hitherto seen in isolation. Ferguson is not afraid of giving his personal angle and his own conclusions, which makes the book a fascinating read, but also one that requires critical thinking by the reader. A must for anyone who would like to understand recent world history better.Fog of War (2008-01-13)
The War of the World, Niall Ferguson’s attempt to identify the macrotrends of the twentieth century and divine where humanity is headed next, has all the characteristics of the typical Niall Ferguson tome: sweeping scope, counterintuitive hypotheses to explain world-shaking events, great narrative drive, and detail drawn from a huge and eclectic mix of sources that render how events were experienced and interpreted by individuals. Compared to Ferguson’s prior oeuvre, however, the book is oddly formless - its theses weakly supported and at times almost forgotten in the welter of narrative detail.
Through hundreds of pages detailing mass slaughter by the Nazis, Soviets, Japanese and allied powers, the central thesis - the steady decline of the West throughout the century - seems almost a non sequitur. Of course the Western powers had less absolute governmental control and economic dominance in 2000 than in 1900 - but that would have been true even if the 20th century had unfolded in Utopian harmony and unchecked economic growth. Indeed, those Westerners who scared up the specter of the “yellow peril” in the early 1900s would probably have been surprised by the extent of American and European economic dominance, not to mention American military dominance, a century later.
Ferguson’s second main thesis - that ethnic conflict, particularly in heterogeneous regions of multi-ethnic empires, was the main trigger of twentieth century bloodletting - is not really supported. The Baltics may have lit the fuse to World War I, but the ensuing death struggle of the great powers was not primarily about ethnicity. The Soviet Union exercised brutal imperial control over a “graveyard of nations” and peoples, but “the race meme” was not the prime driver of Soviet brutality. The Germans, who made a depraved religion of race, were a relatively homogeneous people; the Japanese, committed mass murder in China and much of the rest of Asia, were probably the most homogeneous large nation on earth. “The race meme” was certainly a major contributor to twentieth century violence, and the breakup of decaying empires fueled ethnic conflict. But the worst ethnic conflict was not driven by powers emerging from decayed empires.
A third thesis - that the ethnic powder keg was generally touched off in periods of economic volatility - is interesting, but Ferguson doesn’t invest much effort in proving it. What seems sloppiest is Ferguson’s overall framing of 20th century violence. His delimiting of a “50 Years War” from 1903-1953 amounts to little more than a list of conflicts within that period. His claim that there was scarcely any diminution in violence in the century’s second half seems preposterous - he simply rattles off a long series of dreadful conflicts without any effort to compare casualty totals. Indeed, his evidence supporting the claim that the twentieth century was the most violent ever is relegated to an appendix. This lack of statistical analysis is surprising for a scholar whose roots are in economic history and who generally amasses a mountain of data in support of often startling, revisionist claims.
The War of the World exhausts and troubles the reader by the sheer weight and depth of its chronicle of `what man has done to man.’ By reminding us of the sudden descent into violence following the long period of relative peace and globalization leading up to World War I, it leaves one haunted by the sense that the next cataclysm may be just around the corner. Ferguson takes a passing swipe at Fukuyama’s The End of History, which posits that humanity as a while is trending toward democratic capitalism. But Ferguson does not really demonstrate that the West has `declined’ in any meaningful or undesirable sense, or that nations and international institutions have learned nothing about avoiding and containing outbreaks of violence, or that democracy is not spreading and worldwide violence diminishing.
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