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

"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.

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.