Product Description

A landmark work of history. An explosive and argumentative new book that rewrites our most basic assumptions about the causes and consequences of the First World War. . The Pity of War makes one very simple and provocative argument: that the human atrocity known as the First World War was entirely Englands fault, that Englands entry into the war was based on a miscalculated and nave exaggeration of German aims, and that Englands entry into the war transformed a continental conflict into a World War that they then badly handled, necessitating American involvement. In The Pity of War , Niall Ferguson makes a simple and provocative argument: that the human atrocity known as the Great War was entirely Englands fault. Britain, according to Ferguson, entered into war based on nave assumptions of German aimsand Englands entry into the war transformed a Continental conflict into a world war, which they then badly mishandled, necessitating American involvement. The war was not inevitable, Ferguson argues, but rather the result of the mistaken decisions of individuals who would later claim to have been in the grip of huge impersonal forces. That the war was wicked, horrific, inhuman,is memorialized in part by the poetry of men like Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, but also by cold statistics. More British soldiers were killed in the first day of the Battle of the Somme than Americans in the Vietnam War; indeed, the total British fatalities in that single battlesome 420,000exceeds the entire American fatalities for both World Wars. And yet, as Ferguson writes, while the war itself was a disastrous folly, the great majority of men who fought it did so with enthusiasm. Ferguson vividly brings back to life this terrifying period, not through dry citation of chronological chapter and verse but through a series of brilliant chapters focusing on key ways in which we now view the First World War. For anyone wanting to understand why wars are fought, why men are willing to fight them, and why the world is as it is today, there is no sharper nor more stimulating guide than Niall Fergusons The Pity of War .

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #396639 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 608 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
If someone less distinguished than Niall Ferguson--a fellow and tutor in Modern History at Jesus College, Oxford--had written The Pity of Waryou could be forgiven for thinking that he was a man in search of a few cheap headlines by contradicting almost every accepted orthodoxy about World War I.

Ferguson argues that Britain was as much to blame for the start of the war as was German militarism, and that had Britain sacrificed Belgium to Germany, the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution would never have happened, Germany would have created a united European state, and Britain could have remained a superpower. He also contends that there was little enthusiasm for the war in Britain in 1914, but equally he claims that it was not prolonged by clever manipulation of the media. Instead, he purports that the reason men fought was because they enjoyed it. He also maintains that it wasn't the severity of the conditions imposed on Germany at Versailles in 1919 that led inexorably to World War II; rather it was the comparative leniency and the failure to collect reparations in full.

The Pity of War has no pretensions to offering the grand narrative of World War I. Instead it reads like a polemical tract; as such it is immensely readable, well-researched, and controversial. You may not end up agreeing with all of Ferguson's arguments, but that should not deter you from reading it. All of us need our deeply-held views challenged from time to time; if only to remind us why we've got them. --John Crace

Review
As the 20th century draws to a close, Ferguson (Modern History/Oxford Univ.; The House of Rothschild, 1998) renders a brilliant reassessment of one of the century's most far-reaching and tragic wars, the First World War. Ferguson unpacks the terror and tragedy of the war while demolishing widely held beliefs about it. One of these was that the war was an inevitable result of regnant imperialism and militarism: Ferguson argues trenchantly that the trend in Europe in 1914 was away from militarism and that German feedings of growing military weakness started the war. Ferguson also contends that equivocal British policies in Europe and failure to maintain a credible army to back up its continental commitments, among other factors, led Britain needlessly to transform a continental conflict into a world war. Ferguson also establishes that until the collapse of the German leadership's morale in late 1918, Germany was actually winning the war by any important measure - though vastly economically inferior to Britain, Germany had defeated three of the Entente powers and came close to defeating France, Britain, and Italy. Moreover, Ferguson contends, because of the tactical excellence of its armies, Germany was far more efficient then the Entente powers at inflicting casualties on its enemies until the very end of its failed 1918 offensive. The author also attacks the common view that the masses greeted the war enthusiastically in 1914. He scrutinizes in depth the propaganda war, the often draconian suppression of dissent in the belligerent countries, the soldiers' diverse and often banal motives for fighting, and shifting combatant attitudes toward surrender, which, he asserts, was a risky act, since both sides routinely killed surrendering men. Changing attitudes toward surrender may have contributed to the final collapse of German form. In the end, Ferguson concludes, WWI was not unavoidable, but "the greatest error of modern history." Moving, penetrating, eye-opening, and lucidly reasoned. An important work of historical analysis. (Kirkus Reviews)

Synopsis
A landmark work of history. An explosive and argumentative new book that rewrites our most basic assumptions about the causes and consequences of the First World War. . The Pity of War makes one very simple and provocative argument: that the human atrocity known as the First World War was entirely Englands fault, that Englands entry into the war was based on a miscalculated and nave exaggeration of German aims, and that Englands entry into the war transformed a continental conflict into a World War that they then badly handled, necessitating American involvement. In The Pity of War , Niall Ferguson makes a simple and provocative argument: that the human atrocity known as the Great War was entirely Englands fault. Britain, according to Ferguson, entered into war based on nave assumptions of German aimsand Englands entry into the war transformed a Continental conflict into a world war, which they then badly mishandled, necessitating American involvement. The war was not inevitable, Ferguson argues, but rather the result of the mistaken decisions of individuals who would later claim to have been in the grip of huge impersonal forces. That the war was wicked, horrific, inhuman,is memorialized in part by the poetry of men like Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, but also by cold statistics. More British soldiers were killed in the first day of the Battle of the Somme than Americans in the Vietnam War; indeed, the total British fatalities in that single battlesome 420,000exceeds the entire American fatalities for both World Wars. And yet, as Ferguson writes, while the war itself was a disastrous folly, the great majority of men who fought it did so with enthusiasm. Ferguson vividly brings back to life this terrifying period, not through dry citation of chronological chapter and verse but through a series of brilliant chapters focusing on key ways in which we now view the First World War. For anyone wanting to understand why wars are fought, why men are willing to fight them, and why the world is as it is today, there is no sharper nor more stimulating guide than Niall Fergusons The Pity of War .

Customer Reviews

Overstretched narrative with few interesting arguments
I read the book with the hope to find out why and how could this madness have happened, but did not. It seems that Ferguson sets out with the aim to refute truisms about the WW I. His main propositions are:
- the war could have been avoided
- there was lack of militarism among masses
- media played a big part in whipping up patriotism and war hysteria, and keeping war going
- Britain could have stayed out of war being better off without fighting it
- there was economic and human (in numbers) superiority of the Entente Powers over the Central Powers but still Germany could have won the war
- Germany was much more effective in killing enemies than the Entente
- Germany only lost the war when the German soldiers lost will to fight and surrendered

Most of those propositions are sympathetic even if not always backed with evidence and logical arguments. Lot of paper could have been saved simply by stating that the Entente Powers combined GDP was 60% greater and they had 4,5 times as many people as the Central Powers... Overall it was too many words but about 10% of the book was really interesting: the last "What if" chapter and the argument that German victory in the continental war might have created a version of European Union many decades ahead of schedule.

An interesting evaluation but not his best work
The Pity of War seems like a good idea, re-evaluating the First World War and challenging the pre-conceived ideas. However, it is let down by a problematic structure which doesn't make it very readable and the fact that his arguments do not seem fully developed and all seem to point towards an already decided conclusion.

Thought-provoking
It isn't necessary to agree with all of Niall Ferguson's conclusions to admire this book. In it he challenges more or less every accepted point of view about World War 1 - that Germany was intrinsically 'militarist', that Britain was morally and materially obligated to enter the war in 1914, that a cynical cabal of bankers, media tycoons and politicians agitated for, and then benefited from, the war itself. Ferguson subjects all of these supposed 'truths' to rigorous analysis. His conclusions are not always convincing, and long chapters on economic history can become confusing, but this [extremely well-written] book will nevertheless make you reassess the First World War. You might even end up agreeing with him.