The Deluge
On the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, Deluge is a powerful explanation of why the war's legacy continues to shape our world. This book tells a radical, new story of the struggle for global mastery from the battles of the Western Front in 1916 to the Great Depression of the 1930s. It shows how the fate of effectively the whole of civilization—the British Empire, the future of peace in Europe, the survival of the Weimar Republic, both the Russian and Chinese revolutions and stability in the Pacific—now came to revolve around this new power's fraught relationship with a shockingly changed world. The Deluge is both a brilliantly illuminating exploration of the past and an essential history for the present.
WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES PRIZE FOR HISTORY
FINANCIAL TIMES AND NEW STATESMAN BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2014
"Bold and ambitious . . . probably the best of the current books about the First World War."
— Observer
"A remarkable new synthesis which draws on [Tooze's] two particular areas of expertise, Eurasia and especially Germany, and the global financial system revolving around London ... the great strength of his book is that he invites us to look at familiar events in unfamiliar ways ... Tooze's account brims with contemporary resonances ... He is too good a historian, however, to turn this into a simple argument for Keynesian deficit financing ... the general public and policymakers alike will - must! - turn to Adam Tooze for instruction."
— Brendan Simms Tablet
"It is particularly refreshing to read Adam Tooze's book ... it confirms his stature as an analyst of hugely complex political and economic issues ... Tooze's book covers a huge geographical sweep ... he shows himself a formidably impressive chronicler of a critical period of modern history, unafraid of bold judgements."
— Max Hastings, Sunday Times
"Adam Tooze's masterly book should be required reading for anyone who wants to truly understand the significance of the war ... Extensively researched and written with exemplary clarity, this work is as monumentally ambitious as its subject ... his powers of description and analysis range across all inhabited continents ... this is a valuable look at the ways in which the years after the war came to define the rest of the 20th century."
"Interesting, engaging and very readable ... Underpinning this account is an impressive facility with numbers and an ability to analyze them that is increasingly rare among historians nowadays ... he has also delivered, for the first time, ...a clear and compelling rationale as to why it is actually worth going back and looking at the era of the First World War at this particular moment in time ... The Deluge reminds us, then, why we write history and why we should read it."
— Literary Review
"Tooze made his name with The Wages of Destruction . . . His study of the post-1918 era is equally impressive, explaining why the US and its allies, having defeated Germany, were unable to stabilize the world economy and build a collective security system in Europe."
— Tony Barber, Financial Times