The War of the World: History's Age of Hatred

Niall Ferguson

ISBN 10: 0713997087 / ISBN 13: 9780713997088

Published by The Penguin Press, 2006

About this Item

Signed and inscribed by Ferguson on the title page in blue pen. Pages are very clean and bright with no markings. Trivial shelving wear. DJ is now protected by a mylar cover. Binding is tight and square. Small closed tear to the upper edge of the rear panel DJ cover. Seller Inventory # 299934

Bibliographic Details

Title: The War of the World: History's Age of Hatred

Publisher: The Penguin Press

Publication Date: 2006

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Fine

Dust Jacket Condition: Fine

Signed: Signed By Author

Edition: First Edition.

About this title

Synopsis:

Unusual book

Review:

This is the granddaddy of all alien invasion stories, first published by H.G. Wells in 1898. The novel begins ominously, as the lone voice of a narrator tells readers that "No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's..."

Things then progress from a series of seemingly mundane reports about odd atmospheric disturbances taking place on Mars to the arrival of Martians just outside of London. At first the Martians seem laughable, hardly able to move in Earth's comparatively heavy gravity even enough to raise themselves out of the pit created when their spaceship landed. But soon the Martians reveal their true nature as death machines 100-feet tall rise up from the pit and begin laying waste to the surrounding land. Wells quickly moves the story from the countryside to the evacuation of London itself and the loss of all hope as England's military suffers defeat after defeat. With horror his narrator describes how the Martians suck the blood from living humans for sustenance, and how it's clear that man is not being conquered so much a corralled. --Craig E. Engler