incisive, challenging, revisionist, with a heavy dose of economic theory and reams of data. not the easiest read, but well worth the time if you're interested in the first world war. ferguson takes on commonly held beliefs about the value of propaganda, the root causes of the war (diplomacy, logistics, relative military strength, etc.), the economic strength and efficiency of the combatant powers, the military efficiency of the combatants, the treaty of versailles and the hyperinflation, literar...

I write this opinion piece on ‘The Pity of War’ to offer a few words of warning to those interested in picking up this book, but do not have much background knowledge about the Great War. This fascinating book is not a general account of the Great War, and, in my opinion, should not be the first book an interested party picks up on the subject. Instead Dr. Ferguson offers a revisionist view on many of the prevailing wisdoms found on the subject. And he manages to wield his intellect with verve

An Interesting, Partly Patchy Assessment of the Great WarIt is a very ambitious undertaking which Niall Ferguson attempts with his book The Pity of War, not so much to give yet another account of the First World War but rather to offer a re-interpretation of various results of historical research into what George F. Kennan named “the seminal catastrophe of [the 20th] century”. In the introduction to his book, Ferguson names ten questions which he wants to deal with, namely- whether militarism, i...

The recent centennial anniversary of Great War has renewed a number of dormant debates around various topics including inevitability, predictability, necessity, and aftermath of the war not to mention re-evaluation of its causes and guilt attributions. Ferguson has always been vocal on the subject and his take on the war has been characterized by many as revisionist and radical. I disagree. Yes, he does indeed take an opinionated view of the events but overall his position is actually pretty nua...

Dr Ferguson seeks to overturn some long-held beliefs about WWI. He does this primarily through a masterful wielding of statistics. For example, the myth of war enthusiasm in Britain. He is able to show that this was something very short-lived, which occurred mostly at the beginning of the war. He is able to argue, too, that there were real alternatives for Britain if she had stayed out of the war. The Entente was after all a gentleman's agreement. There was no formal treaty committing British fo...

Next to John Keegan's work this is the foundation work to be read before all other books of the Great War. I know that most of the critics dislike this book immensely, because it so challenges the accepted understanding of the causes of the war--but that is precisely why I liked it. He also arranges the chapters well in an organized manner. I have several of Ferguson's books and I like his style, though some consider him a bit pedantic, I think there is a crispness and an assumption of knowledge...

World War I was the greatest mistake of modern time. Ferguson makes the case better than I could that the war was not inevitable, that without British intervention it would have been a relatively quick German victory, and that the results of a quick German victory would have been better for everyone (including the French and British).Ferguson downplayed the extent that WW1 essentially ruined Europe permanently (particularly if you combine WW1 with WW2), and didn't particularly describe the horri...

This is one of the worst books I have ever read. I will never touch anything by Niall Ferguson again. There is an interesting thesis in the summary, that the catastrophe that was WWI was entirely England's fault, but I have no idea if that is true or not because the scholarship in the book is so incredibly awful. At one point, he devolves into simply listing fiction books that show that England was set on going to war. How that has ANYTHING to do with the war being only England's fault, I have a...

Challenging and provocative. A little heavy-going but steadily blasts away at some well-established but lazy Great War myths.

Ferguson argues that not only was the Great War piteous in that so many suffered and died, but was a pity in that it was unnecessary. Britain could have stayed out, as German war aims, initially, weren't anything the British couldn't live with. A continental war that humbled France and Russia might have actually led to a EU-like organization decades earlier. Ferguson is to be complimented for his though-provoking economic and social perspectives on the war. Even if all of his arguments don't ent...

This book marked my intense distaste for Niall Ferguson as an historian and public intellectual wannabe. Since, he has only fallen in my esteem.

Originally published on my blog here in December 2000.Niall Ferguson takes a fresh look at the First World War, looking mainly to see whether there is evidence to support the various historical traditions which have grown up around certain aspects of the war, principally its cause and outcome. It is not a book aimed at someone who knows nothing about the history of the period; a fair amount is assumed and much of Ferguson's argument is quite technical.The issues that Ferguson wishes to raise are...

Controversial and brilliant. A fascinating reassessment of the Great War using primary sources and a significant amount of new economic data, Ferguson questions some of the fundamental assumptions about the war. In particular, he discusses the issue of the inevitability of war, which has become so entrenched, based on the system of treaties between the various empires. Almost everyone would agree with the statement that the war was mis-managed by the 'old contemptibles' but Ferguson argues that

WWI has always been a fascination of mine and Niall Ferguson went a long way to answering my biggest question: how did they get hundreds of thousands of otherwise clever men to climb out of muddy trenches and WALK across a patch of land, all the while being shot at. Not being a man, I'm not sure I will ever understand it (it's GOT to be a guy thing), but now I can a little bit more intellectually appreciate the why.If you are even a little bit interested in the topic, Ferguson is very readable,

Most disappointing, in fact I felt somewhat conned by a title designed to lure those of us brought up on Wilfrid Owen, "Oh what a lovey war!" and "Black Adder". The pity of the First World War, Ferguson reckons, was not so much the 37 million dead or the fact the war achieved nothing, only sowing the seeds of a new and even more terrible one. No, the tragedy is that it delayed the formation of a German-led EU by a few decades. Golly.Lest I be charged with flippancy, note how the author goes out

Took me awhile to get through this one. But what an excellent book on the origin of WWI, ultimately WWII, and the consequences that the world faces today because of the choices made in the early part of the 20th century. Niall Ferguson makes a pretty compelling case, Britain's early entry into the war led to the protracted war known as the Great War. And that Germany's intentional mishandling of their post war economy led to the National Socialist movement that caused WWII. The strange part is t...

An engrossing dense and scholarly thesis on WWIThis is an advanced book discussing the causes and effects of WWI. Ferguson particularly argues that the conflagration was Britain's fault not Germany's. This is a dense and scholarly book. Ferguson addresses ten questions in support of his thesis (p. 442). The book requires a bit of familiarity with macroeconomics, and a background in WWI history (I have read over fourteen nonfiction and over eight fiction books). I would not take up this book as m...

I started this book because Taleb mentioned how Ferguson used inter-country spreads on 10-year bond yields as a proxy for measuring estimated instability and I wanted to understand this method. However, I forgot that Ferguson is a great writer who managed to craft a series of compelling alternative narratives describing the war that most Americans ignore because it lacked a Steven Spielberg film or award-winning video game. That said, this book should be accompanied with a viewing of Kubrick's "...

Ferguson at his best. Financial analysis of WW1 and its causes proving, contrary to what we learn in school, that Britain caused the war.

If I were to be a bit unfair to the book, I would say that it was boring, repetitive and long. The book is in fact a series of essays, and so the publisher/cover misrepresents the book as having a 'simple thesis - that the British were responsible for the war.' In fact, this is simply the subject matter of a few essays, and in most cases this is asserted only indirectly.The only truly interesting chapter, in my opinion, was the one covering the willingness of soldiers to fight in the face of abs...