Niall's saga.(The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West)(Book review)

The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West, by Niall Ferguson (Penguin, 880 pp., $35)

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NIALL FERGUSON's ponderous volume accompanies a TV series and is heavily punctuated by maps and statistical tables. Covering the 20th century, it starts in 1904 when, for the first time, an Asian power (Japan) defeated a European (really Eurasian) one (Russia); and it concludes by arguing that the real loser in the century was the West, and the real winner Asia, or more specifically the two population giants, India and China. The book also seeks to analyze the horrific record of violence during the century and tries to explain it by a complex psychosexual theory which I found difficult to follow.

Ferguson is good at writing big books, organizing a mass of historical detail and telling figures in a readable way. The War of the World certainly ought to be widely circulated, though it reminds me of the notorious exchange between the clever advocate, F. E. Smith, and the stupid judge. Judge: "I have listened carefully to your case, Mr. Smith, and I am none the wiser." Smith: "Possibly not, my Lord, but certainly better informed." One emerges from the book much better informed about the details but no clearer about the underlying causes of the cosmic disaster.

Ferguson will not be surprised that readers want to argue with him. Indeed he invites disagreement by his provocative assertions (he belongs to the school of A. J. P. Taylor, the notoriously provocative radical historian). In the first place, he exaggerates the strength of the West at the beginning of the century, if by the West he means its European core. In the years up to 1914 the three powers with the highest growth rates were Japan, Russia (especially non-European Russia, including the Caucasus), and America. Europe looked stronger than it was because of the vast territories of its (chiefly African) empires, but these were often a source of weakness, as was unforgettably demonstrated by Britain's misadventure of the Boer War. The empires were more important than any other factor in preventing European powers from acting in concert, and it was not until they were liquidated that the European Union could be founded.

As for Ferguson's contention that Asia has emerged the real victor of the 20th century, that is an easy guess to make at this stage, when both India and China are achieving spectacular growth rates. But it is the next quarter century that will provide the test. Long-term sustained growth, with all that flows from it in power and prosperity, depends on a tradition of freedom and individualism that produces entrepreneurial innovation. The lack of this tradition in Japan meant that she was unable, in the last quarter of the 20th century, to sustain the high growth achieved in the third quarter: The Japanese "miracle" underwent a diminuendo into near stagnation.

China, with a Communist regime that punishes individualism beyond a certain point, may go the same way as Japan, especially as she has chosen to achieve high growth mainly through old-style smokestack industries and low-cost manufacture of basic consumer goods. High-tech experimentation remains exclusively in the hands of the state, and what good did that do the old Soviet Union in terms of prosperity? India is likely to do better because it inherited the English tradition of personal freedom and is concentrating on the advanced industries and processes radiating from the revolution in communications. That seems to be a much better bet than China's sledgehammer strategy. And India does not suffer from the stultifying conformism of the Japanese elites who are terrified of getting out ...