The Pity Of War

Ferguson, Niall

ISBN 10: 046505711X / ISBN 13: 9780465057115

Published by Basic Books, 1999

Book is in Very Good condition, with minimal handling and light shelf wear, binding is tight, corners are sharp, interior is clean, text is free of markings. The dust jacket shows some light handling, in a mylar cover. Seller Inventory # SELferPOW

Synopsis:

Studies the origins, financing, and outcome of World War I, and discusses public support, recruiting and retention of soldiers, treatment of prisoners, and related issues

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

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Pity Of War
Publisher: Basic Books
Publication Date: 1999
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
Edition: First Edition third printing.