War of the World

No, it's not a reprint of the seminal science fiction book by HG Wells, the last book I cherry-picked from the NYTimes 2006 Notable Books List.

It's a reasoned retelling of the last century, certainly the bloodiest in human history. What in the opinion of the author caused it, and possibly how to avoid that the next century will follow suit(does this makes sense?).

A review's comment by which I was particularly striken is this: absurd for us to remember the cold war fondly as a time of peace and stability'' when ''between 1945 and 1983 around 19 or 20 million people were killed in around 100 major military conflicts.

Funny, I was wondering exactly along the same lines yesterday, under the shower (yes I do sometimes sing, too)... My reflection was more concerned with the fact that the United states, even after the end of WWII, have been almost constantly busy, in one way or another, in one or the other part of the world, from (south) east asia in the Fifties-to-Seventies, to Central-and-latin Americas later on, and finally the Middle-East in the last twenty years... am I missing some place?

what next? China is certainly rising up fast, both economically and as a major concern for the stability of the surrounding area. But frankly I can't see the US and their compadres cutting themselves off from the most promising future market...

My political clout is unfortunately too limited to make more educated guesses. Time will tell, I believe... How did that nasty proverb said: I wish you to live in interesting times... yeah, right, thank you very much...