By By Maraithe Thomas, News Correspondent

‘ Most authors go on a book tour to publicize and hype their latest books. Monday night, however, British historian Niall Ferguson came to Northeastern to explain why his 2006 book, ‘The War of the World: History’s Age of Hatred,’ failed.
Not only did he examine the many ways in which his book was what he called an insufficient attempt to explain why the 20th century was so violent, but he also explained why an international history book is rarely successful.
‘International history is virtually impossible to pull off,’ Ferguson said. ‘I tried and failed. I think more historians should admit to defeat.’
Ferguson said he wanted to stress to fellow scholars the limitations of their profession.
Ferguson, who is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University and an expert on economics and history, has appeared on the Colbert Report and has had articles published in Vanity Fair.
He spoke to a group of about 40 people, mostly faculty members, at the lecture entitled ‘The War of the World: A Failed Attempt at Global History,’ in the Egan Research Center. He touched on the points he made in his ‘failed’ book and allowed the audience to make their own criticisms at the end of his presentation.
One woman in the audience took his invitation to critique his presentation strongly. She questioned his choice of sources and accused him of ignoring the continent of Africa in his book.
‘The War of the World’ focuses mainly on the ‘paradox of the 20th century,’ which explores why the century with the most material progress, highest growth of per capita income and greatest increase in life expectancy was also the most violent.
During the talk, Ferguson outlined the reasons his book puts forth for this phenomenon. He said rapid growth can be as destabilizing as a recession and that ethic integration, which has been an important part of the 20th century, can have a huge violent backlash when things start to go wrong in the economy ‘- an example being Jews in pre-World War II Germany.
He spoke about the limitations of historians and scholars alike in taking on huge, global topics. He said historians have become bolder in what they want to tackle, but have neglected to become more ambitious in the methods they use.
‘We haven’t quite acknowledged our own limitations as scholars in undertaking projects,’ he said. ‘We’re relying on traditional methods. Historians need to get modern.’
Ferguson is currently working on a biography of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. He said he hopes focusing on international history through the focal point of Kissinger will be a more successful endeavor than ‘The War of the World.’