How long does it take to read The Pity of War?
The Pity of War by Niall Ferguson takes about 10 hours 45 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 10 hours 45 minutes
A week or two of reading
First published 1998. 586 pages, about 161,150 words.
22 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 17 hours 54 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 10 hours 45 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 6 hours 43 minutes |
The page count is the median across 9 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
In The Pity of War, Niall Ferguson explodes the myths of 1914-18. He argues that the fatal conflict between Britain and Germany was far from inevitable. It was Britain's declaration of war that needlessly turned a continental conflict into a world war, and it was Britain's economic mismanagement and military inferiority that necessitated American involvement, forever altering the global balance of power. Ferguson vividly brings back to life one of the seminal catastrophes of the century, not through a dry citation of chronological chapter and verse, but through a series of chapters that answer the key questions: Why did the war start? Why did it continue? And why did it stop? How did the Germans manage to kill more soldiers than they lost but still end up defeated in November 1918? Above all, why did men fight?
Subjects: First World War, World War I, Histoire, Weltkrieg, Guerre mondiale, Rampspoed
