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Niall Fergusson's most important book to date-a revolutionary reinterpretation of the modern era that resolves its central paradox: why unprecedented progress coincided with unprecedented violence and why the seeming triumph of the West bore the seeds of its undoing.

From the conflicts that presaged the First World War to the aftershocks of the cold war, the twentieth century was by far the bloodiest in all of human history. How can we explain the astonishing scale and intensity of its violence when, thanks to the advances of science and economics, most people were better off than ever before-eating better, growing taller, and living longer? Wherever one looked, the world in 1900 offered the happy prospect of ever-greater interconnection. Why, then, did global progress descend into internecine war and genocide? Drawing on a pioneering combination of history, economics, and evolutionary theory, Niall Ferguson-one of Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People"-masterfully examines what he calls the age of hatred and sets out to explain what went wrong with modernity.

On a quest that takes him from the Siberian steppe to the plains of Poland, from the streets of Sarajevo to the beaches of Okinawa, Ferguson reveals an age turned upside down by economic volatility, multicultural communities torn apart by the irregularities of boom and bust, an era poisoned by the idea of irreconcilable racial differences, and a struggle between decaying old empires and predatory new states. Who won the war of the world? We tend to assume it was the West. Some even talk of the American century. But for Ferguson, the biggest upshot of twentieth-century upheaval was the decline of Western dominance over Asia.

A work of revelatory interpretive power, The War of the World is Niall Ferguson's masterwork. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

尼尔•弗格森(Niall Ferguson)

西方最具影响力的明星历史学家，历任英国剑桥大学和牛津大学助教、讲师和教授，现为哈佛大学历史系、商学院历史学和金融学两个学科的特聘教授。著作和言论横跨历史与财经、学界与商界、大学与媒体等几个领域，在国际学术界构成了一道独特的风景线。主要著作有《世界战争与西方的衰落》《文明》《帝国》《战争的不幸》《货币崛起》《罗斯柴尔德家族》等。

2004年，年仅40岁的弗格森被《时代周刊》评为全世界最具影响力的100位名人之一。

《世界战争与西方的衰落》一书是弗格森代表作，他也因为在这部著作中对战争原因的追问和对两次世界大战的深刻反思而赢得了更加卓著的声誉。