elbabun A critical debate between Pankaj Mishra and the author is extremely illuminating: www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n21/pankaj-mishra/watch-this-manWhether the author is a classical Charles Oman's vulgarisateur or a la Ann Coulter from across the ocean is for the viewer to decide!Were you to lament the former glory of British Empire with instinctive patriotic zeal and wistful for its positive accomplishments, then this is a movie you will appreciate. Were you to instinctively demonize British Empire, then you likely will feel insulted over and over through this movie. The academic debate on the role of Colonial Empires is much more balanced with careful assessment of incidental benefits that rule brought and negative consequences that exploitation brought.It is unfortunately full of outright erroneous emotive pabulum steeped in old stereotypes. Ascribing white supremacist views to Russian elites in pre-WW1 days, is a classical Jungian externalization of eugenics enamored British tendencies of those days. Russia was afflicted with messianic zeal. But the famous and shameful "burden of white man" was substituted with equally questionable "defender of Orthodox faith" and "Third Rome" rhetoric, hence supra-ethnic definition of Russian nation as any Orthodox Christian living within borders of Russian Empire.In short, it is a good and entertaining product from the self-proclaimed champion of counterfactual history. Just as one allows for creative freedom in fiction movies for the sake of production's amusement value, this movie deserves no less.

I B For those who don't know, Niall Ferguson is a Western Russophobic propagandist. Just take a look at his body of work. In everything that he wrote he praised capitalism and the Western way of life. He is, of course, praised and promoted by Western propagandist publications. Russia and Communism aren't the only things he dislikes. He pretty much smears anything that's not Western. Like other Western authors these days he's trying to falsify history. One of their top objectives is the falsification of Russian history of the 20th century. That's right, the Soviet period. Don't believe me? Do some real research and find out for yourself. Russian philosopher Aleksandr Zinovyev already wrote about such people and about what's going on with Western society. If you've been told to hate and distrust Russians then turn to books by honest Western historians like Fernand Braudel or Carroll Quigley.So what's really going on with the West? Obviously what Ferguson is saying is useless. Western Civilization is currently in the Age of Conflict, a bad period. It seems that the United States will become, or is already becoming, the universal empire of the West. Some may think that this is cool but it's not. The age of the universal empire is the last period in a civilization's life. After that it decays and then gets invaded by outsiders. It's a period when people's belief in their culture declines. This is what happened to the Roman Empire, the universal empire of Classical Civilization. The reason why the West dominates the world is because Western Civilization is the most powerful in history. But, like I said, it's also close to death. This is why Western culture is getting worse and worse, why the West is waging imperialist wars, and why the economic situation is bad. The rulers of the West are resorting to methods which aren't normal because the instrument of expansion, Industrial Capitalism, has become a structure of vested interests called Monopoly Capitalism. And Ferguson is actually praising this rotten system. He gets a paycheck from his masters by writing and producing bull, but I think that the average person needs to know what's really going on.

njmollo The War of the World by Professor Niall Ferguson is touted as a radically different perspective on the wars of the last century. In fact this diatribe has a tendency to state the obvious.One word is used often, Inhuman. This word suggests that cruel violence is contrary to human behaviour but in fact human beings have consistently shown through out history a prevalence for violence rather than any other characteristic. It is interesting to see that after some time has passed conspiracy can be legitimately entered into historical record such as the false flag operations of the Japanese against the Chinese or the general acceptance that Pearl Harbor was not the surprise attack it was publicised to be. Professor Niall Ferguson is ready to believe acts of state sponsored terrorism but remarkably supports the crazed lone gunman theory when talking about the assassination of JFK.For a more rewarding documentary on war, ideology and human behaviour I would recommend the "The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear" (2004) by Adam Curtis.

aarone2884 This differs from most War documentary as it try's to look at All the major conflicts as one long conflict of the 20th century. Does it Work? Not defiantly. but it does well.It is a 6 part series, the first 3 to 4 episodes i was a bit disappointed in the show to be honest, as nial seemed to just cover the "the same old ground" nothing profound (sill very watchable though)And nothing more than i had learned or deducted from many WW1 and WW2 Documentary's. (in fact in comparison to Documentary like "The World at War" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071075/ (don't confuse the two)It was lacking in detail of the WW2 period. but the real twist in this series comes in the last 2 to 3 episodes. (the assumption is most people will watch this thinking it is about WW1 and WW2 only...Keep watching)He links up all the wars of the 20th century to the true main ingredients of what makes any vicious war...RACE and Economy. And you will find he will reference parts of the early episodes to back up his arguments very well.I don't fully agree with his causes of WW1 or even WW2 for that matter. but his overall linking of the wars of the 20th century is excellent. Unfortunately i feel there was not enough time to go through all the details from 1960 to 1985. where i kinda feel the show should have started from the 1950's....and only used WW1 and WW2 as reference rather than dedicate 3 episodes to it...but this would be based on the assumption that anyone watching would already have a good understanding of WW2 and WW1.As it is such a large encompassing 100years of history it is hard to be perfect, and at the same time accommodate any audience. Finally it may leave you in a bit of shock towards the end of the series. I wont elaborate as to what it may or may not portend the future to be for Europe or the world for that matter....but it will make you sit up. Great show, well worthy of any arm chair historians collection.