'War of the World'

Today a good lecture by Niall Ferguson - historian, Harvard professor, 'public' and media-savvy intellectual-on latest book 'War of the World', which presents his explanation for the exceptional violence of the 20th Century. Need to have a read but in short the combination of ethnic 'disintegration', economic volatility, empires in decline, and what he terms the continuing 'Descent of the West' are a potent recipe for conflict...