The Coming Storm
Odd Arne Westad
  • Published: 5 March 2026
  • ISBN: 9781802069853
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 256
Categories:

The Coming Storm

Power, Conflict and Warnings from History

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A prescient, thoughtful and chilling examination of the current state of the world

If there are lessons from history, now is the time when we need to heed them, so that we do not end up in another Great Power war because of the fatal combinations of jingoism, fear, fatalism, and sheer stupidity that set off the first major war of the 20th century.

The great majority of people alive today have come of age in a world of remarkable stability, presided over by either one or two superpowers. This is not to say the world has been peaceful; but it has to an extent been predictable. As an increasing number of Great Powers now jostle for regional supremacy our world has become more fragile, unpredictable – and combustible.

To understand the threats that face us in this complex new terrain, we must look to the lessons of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century – a time when Great Powers clashed and sought regional dominance, when nationalism and populism were on the rise, and many felt that globalization had failed them: a time, in other words, that carries eerie parallels with our own.
  • Published: 5 March 2026
  • ISBN: 9781802069853
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 256
Categories:

About the author

Odd Arne Westad

Odd Arne Westad is one of the world's foremost experts on both the Cold War and contemporary East Asian history, having won the Bancroft Prize, the Michael Harrington Award and the Akira Iriye International History Book Award for his seminal book The Global Cold War. A Professor of International History at the London School of Economics, he is also co-director of LSE IDEAS, a centre for the study of international affairs, diplomacy and grand strategy.

Odd Arne Westad, FBA, is Professor of International History at the London School of Economics. He has published fifteen books on modern and contemporary international history, among them The Global Cold War, which won the Bancroft Prize, and Decisive Encounters, a standard history of the Chinese civil war. He also served as general co-editor of the Cambridge History of the Cold War.

Also by Odd Arne Westad

The Cold War
The Penguin History of the World: 6th edition
The Penguin History Of The World
Restless Empire
See all

Praise for The Coming Storm

Praise for Odd Arne Westad's previous book The Cold War

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Westad has demonstrated that it is possible to tell the vast story of the Cold War in just 600 pages...a clear and well-written summary of a global conflict

Gerard Degroot, The Times

A tremendous and timely history lesson for our age

Kirkus Reviews

Westad's panoramic history is an impressive feat

Publisher's Weekly

The Cold War evinces a lifetime of research and thought on the subject. Compelling ideas and valuable insights appear frequently

National Interest

Westad's ambitious book wrests attention away from the classic arenas of Moscow, Berlin and Washington, and looks instead at Indonesia, Chile, Angola, China and Korea, showing how the Cold War affected the globe and how it was, in turn, shaped by events in seemingly distant lands

Herald Scotland

Ambitious, perspicacious and panoramic in scope

Financial Times
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