A landmark work of history that challenges our most basic
assumptions about the causes and consequences of the First World
War
In The Pity of War, Niall Ferguson makes a simple and
provocative argument: that the human atrocity known as the Great
War was entirely England''s fault. Britain, according to Ferguson,
entered into war based on nave assumptions of German aims-and
England''s 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
battle-some 420,000-exceeds 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
Ferguson''s The Pity of War.
關於作者：
Niall Ferguson is fellow and tutor in modern history at Jesus
College, Oxford. He is the author of Paper and Iron and The House
of Rothschilds and the editor of Virtual History: Alternatives and
Counterfactuals.
目錄：
Figures
Tables
Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Notes on the Illustrations
Introduction
The Myths of Militarism
Empires, Ententes and Edwardian Appeasement
Britains War of Illusions
Arms and Men
Public Finance and National Security
The Last Days of Mankind: 28 June4 August 1914
The August Days: The Myth of War Enthusiasm
The Press Gang
Economic Capability: The Advantage Squandered
Strategy, Tactics and the Net Body Count
Maximum Slaughter at Minimum Expense: War Finance
The Death Instinct: Why Men Fought
The Captors Dilemma
How not to Pay for the War
Conclusion: Alternatives to Armageddon
Notes
Bibliography
Index
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