From the bestselling author of The Ascent of Money and The Square and the Tower "Even those who have read widely in 20th-century history will find fresh, surprising details." —The Boston Globe "A fascinating read, thanks to Ferguson's gifts as a writer of clear, energetic narrative history." —The Washington Post Astonishing in its scope and erudition, this is the magnum opus that Niall Ferguson's numerous acclaimed works have been leading up to. In it, he grapples with perhaps the most challenging questions of modern history: Why was the twentieth century history's bloodiest by far? Why did unprecedented material progress go hand in hand with total war and genocide? His quest for new answers takes him from the walls of Nanjing to the bloody beaches of Normandy, from the economics of ethnic cleansing to the politics of imperial decline and fall. The result, as brilliantly written as it is vital, is a great historian's masterwork.

Excerpted from Niall Ferguson’s sprawling bestseller The War of the World, The Abyss now stands on its own as one of the most thrilling short histories of World War I ever written. This is not a conventional military history about battles and generals. Rather, The Abyss examines how World War I saw the birth of total war—fought between societies as much as armies—and must therefore be understood in terms of the financial crises it unleashed, the multinational empires it destroyed, and the hateful ideas it propagated. The most remarkable thing about the war, Ferguson shows us, is how shockingly unexpected it was. At a time when economic integration and technology seemed to be rendering war between great powers impossible, World War I was the moment when that process went into reverse and the lethal forces of ethnic disintegration took over. Now, on the cusp of the 100th anniversary of its outbreak, we can see World War I as much more than just four years of industrialized slaughter. Weaving together the economics of empire and the ideology of race—and featuring an original preface by the author as well a teaser from his new paperback Civilization—The Abyss is world history at its finest.

In the first quarter of the twentieth century, the British Government, the banks, and leading individuals in London reached historic decisions that determined the name, shape, nature, and future of the region known as the Middle East. In this fascinating and readable book, Roger Adelson examines who made policy, on what grounds, with what information, and with what results. The setting for the narrative is London, then the world's greatest metropolis and its financial and political center. Adelson evokes the atmosphere of Whitehall, Fleet Street, the City of London, and Westminster, and paints a vivid portrait of the individuals (Churchill, Lloyd George, Curzon, Cromer, and others) who established the international agenda. Using an extensive range of public and private archives, he identifies issues of money, power, and territorial ambition at the heart of policy, and he describes decisions made in ignorance of and often wholly without reference to local interests. The book explores and explains British diplomacy both before and after the 1914-1918 War: the protection of the Suez Canal and Persian Gulf; the fear of a German drive to the East and subjugation of the Turks; the discovery of oil; the post-war suppression of nationalist aspirations and the establishment of collaborative regimes more in tune with London than with the Middle East itself. More clearly than any previous work, it identifies the virtual invention of the modern Middle East and the roots of the ethnic and nationalist antagonisms that characterize the region today.

Here is a colorful collection of writings by well known scholars and critics on modern Britain's literature and history. From British personalities, politics, and culture, to Britain's interaction with other societies, the subjects are wide-ranging and sometimes surprising. Niall Ferguson examines the origins of the first World War; Avi Shlaim reasseses the Balfour Declaration; Geoffrey Wheatcroft writes about Evelyn Waugh; David Cannadine revisits C.P. Snow's Two Cultures; and much more.