The War of the World Audiobook By Niall Ferguson cover art

The War of the World

History's Age of Hatred

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The War of the World

By: Niall Ferguson
Narrated by: Saul Reichlin
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About this listen

Penguin presents the unabridged edition of The War of the World by Niall Ferguson, read by Saul Reichlin.

The world at the beginning of the 20th century seemed for most of its inhabitants stable and relatively benign. Globalising, booming economies married to technological breakthroughs seemed to promise a better world for most people.

Instead the 20th century proved to be overwhelmingly the most violent, frightening and brutalised in history, with fanatical, often genocidal warfare engulfing most societies between the outbreak of the First World War and the end of the Cold War.

What went wrong? How did we do this to ourselves? The War of the World comes up with compelling, fascinating answers. It is Niall Ferguson's masterpiece.

©2017 Niall Ferguson (P)2017 Penguin Audio 20th Century Military Modern Wars & Conflicts World
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Critic reviews

"A heartbreaking, serious and thoughtful survey of human evil that is utterly fascinating and dramatic." (Simon Sebag Montefiore, The New York Times)
"Unputdownable, controversial, compelling." ( The Independent on Sunday)
"The grenade lobbed into the cosy tea party of received wisdom." (Max Hastings)

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Profile Image for Angus Black

Excellent book. Insightful but not hysterical.

I loved the book but the reader was very irritating. I speeded the delivery to 1.25* and that actually helped a lot.

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Profile Image for Jakub

Great to listen mediocre history book

I had a good time listening to the book but mostly due to the near perfect narrator. The book itself is well written but in my opinion the analytical insight and revelation it promises in the introduction is missing later on, giving the reader a feeling of dissapointment. It is merley a new rewriting/description of events surrounding the wars of the XX and XXI centuries, rather then an in depth analysis of those events from a novel perspective.

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Profile Image for D

Just another history of WW2

Scholarly and well written, but ultimately just a rehash of the same old WW2 stuff historians have been churning out for decades.

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