"On the Edge of the New Century" is the sequel to Eric Hobsbawm s "The Age of Extremes," a book of serious and challenging historical analysis that became a worldwide bestseller, now in paperback. Hobsbawm s latest book continues his magisterial ("The New York Times Book Review") analysis of the twentieth century, and asks crucial questions about our inheritance from a century of conflict and its meaning for our future.

Looking back over the last decade, Hobsbawm finds the distinction between internal and international conflicts and between the state of war and the state of peace...