The Coming Storm: Power, Conflict, and Warnings from History

by Odd Arne Westad

From a renowned Yale historian comes a chilling look at the looming threat of the next Great Power war and the urgent interventions necessary to avoid it in the twenty-first century.

The vast 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 a great extent, been predictable. As an increasing number of Great Powers jostle for regional supremacy, as well as competitive advantage in nuclear technology, artificial intelligence, space exploration, and trade, our world has become more fragile, unpredictable—and combustible. The outbreak of global war among today’s Great Powers seems increasingly likely. Such war, as Odd Arne Westad powerfully argues in this urgent book, would be of a magnitude and devastation never before seen.

To understand the threats that face us in this complex new terrain, we must look to the lessons of the past, and especially the late nineteenth and early twentieth century—a time when Great Powers clashed and sought regional dominance, nationalism and populism were on the rise, and many felt that globalization had failed them; a time when tariffs increased, immigration and terrorism were among the biggest issues of the day, and a growing number of people blamed the citizens of other countries for their problems. A time, in other words, that carries eerie parallels with our own.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Historical

256 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication March 3, 2026

About the author

Odd Arne Westad, FBA, is a Norwegian historian specializing in the Cold War and contemporary East Asian history. He is currently the ST Lee Professor of US-Asia Relations at Harvard University, teaching in the John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Reviews

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Title & Author: The Coming Storm, Power, Conflict, and Warnings from History by Odd Arne Westad
Publisher: Henry Holt & Co.
Page count: 256
Format: EBook through Kobo
Release Date: March, 3 2026
Synopsis: You know how the world is frightening? ...That's the end of the thought.

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Thank you much to the publisher and NetGalley for providing the ARC, which I read through Kobo, in exchange for an honest review.

I find that some of the most brilliant nonfiction writing points to itself continually. An author sets out threads through their introduction/thesis/etc and you feel those threads being picked back up and interwoven into the broader narrative as time goes on. This volume - which I took little bites of until my threshold had been met for the day - does that, but instead of lil itty bitty fabric it braids together wicks of dynamite. The writing here loops on itself, pointing towards its own thesis, which looks suspiciously like the conclusion that we are presently standing in a powder keg.

The long and the short of the book is put forward early: the circumstances that led to WWI and later power conflicts on the world stage are eerily similar to those now. We have reason to be afraid of this, because the stakes are higher and the conflicts are significantly more complex. The author has a perspective about how and why this is the case, and definitely has a perspective on preventing the next major world war. That perspective is encapsulated well in the introduction: "[this] book serves as an argument for seeking Great Power compromise - not agreement, not convergence, not moral equivalence, but tentative deals for at least some of the issues that today are making conflicts more intense".

Hard to disagree with the thesis, really. Many parallels are correctly being drawn at the moment between today's political climate and the time between WWI and WWII. What is being provided here, and which is absent in typical narratives, is at least the first thought on how the hell nations find their way to a different conclusion.

Being a US American, to my eternal consternation, means that the primary comparisons served to us involve the descent of the federal government into fascism. It was refreshing (???) to see just how far this comparison goes outside of American nationalism. I pictured the author lovingly creating place settings at a table before switching out WWI characters with their contemporary counterparts - the U.S. replacing Britain, China taking the place of Germany, etc., and demonstrating to the reader how those roles could play out on a technologically advanced and nuclear-charged stage. He draws comparisons of world leaders, economic conditions, and skirmishes to convincingly posit that our world is perilously close to the edge over which it fell in 1914.

I don't feel that this perspective should be read as an agenda; or, at least, not an agenda that the average reader can do anything to put into action. That is what I feel is the major drawback, at least from my Gen Z perspective. The degree to which the populations of the major Great Powers have changed over the last hundred-plus years is not discussed in much detail. It's my personal perspective that the populace of these major nations, and the populace's character, matters and has more influence over its leaders than it ever has. I doubt that nationalism is so deeply ingrained these days and would be curious to what degree that fact would effect worldwide conflict.

Moving to the practicals: the writing is concise and convincing, and I found the tone remarkably detached considering the seriousness of the topic. This is a book by an academic and the reader cannot forget that while reading. The breadth of the author's knowledge on historical and contemporary international relations is obvious. Moreover, the ability to find connections is a historian's bread and butter and you can tell that the author knows how to do this skillfully.

Altogether: I doubt that you can live right now without feeling that the world is a little tipsy, and this book, if nothing else, arms you with knowledge of why. I enjoyed the read and feel enriched, if not a little like I need to stay away from lit matches.

[Logan Kedzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Spoilers: Wars will happen.

This book is two things: an analysis of the lead up to World War I, specifically with an interest to how the multi-polar "Great Powers" political situation caused it to come about, and a look at our contemporary world and how it seems that the world is moving once again into a multi-polar circumstance of major empires and no Pax Anybody.

There is a grand analogy at work between now and then, where the U.S. is the U.K., China is Germany, Russia is Austria, India is France, and Brazil is the U.S.. And the emphasis of the history is how something like World War I was as unthinkable to the players then as it would be for major armed conflict between these nations now.

The contemporary section is stronger than the historical one. The author focuses on Asia as the central point of war risk. The prospective pain points and how they might be solved is bracing and open about the limits of our knowledge. The historical one is weak owing to the space allotted. The lead up to World War I is something that multi-volume books are written on without including digressions into modernity.

The key takeaway from the historical section is the aforementioned unthinkablity. Metaphors do not suffice to explain getting into the Great War. Nothing is obvious, except everything that is, and nothing is bound to happen, except those things that are totally predictable. It is humbling if nothing else.

The problem is that there is no hypothesis here. "Look at these two similar things" only gets you so far. Assuming the read is correct that there are a whole bunch of similarities*, the book does not give a reason to expect similar results other than the similarity.

The project is weirdly limited. It would feel like the sort of monopolar 'End of History' world was more the exception than the rule, but here Great Powers acts as a sort of term of art to describe a specific sort of imperal-ish nation-state. Yes, okay, maybe, but we have a lot of examples through history of a lot of other multi-polar scenarios. I feel like any statement about the one we are in now requires more of a general study.

But I feel that the purpose here is more to serve as a sort of alarm to whomever still thinks impossible war-war between two or more contemporary powers, potentially in a way that produces spillage to other power. Snarkily, though, I think that this is a pundit-brain sort of take. Maybe the great unwashed are too ready to predict something big, but that sort of contrarian small c-conservative thinking also only goes so far.

My thanks to the author, Odd Arne Westad, for writing the book, and to the publisher, Henry Holt & Company, for making the ARC available to me.
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* -In my motto of history does not repeat, I am a bit suspect of this as a narrative. It is an easier sell to me that the problems that exist always existed, and that the different polarities are more about a choice of frame rather than anything politically coherent. But this really runs to the problem of it being too big a topic for the room provided

[Alina · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Coming Storm by Odd Arne Westad is a solid and informative read, especially for readers interested in global history and geopolitics. I appreciated how the author goes back to the First and Second World Wars to provide important context, helping the reader better understand how past events continue to shape the world today.
One of the strongest aspects of this book is the way Westad draws comparisons between current global actions and historical approaches—highlighting what has worked, what hasn’t, and why. Those reflections made the book feel timely and relevant, and they encouraged deeper thinking about patterns we continue to repeat on the world stage.

That said, while the content is strong, the book does feel a bit too long at times, and some sections could have been more concise. Still, it’s a well-researched and insightful book that offers a lot to think about.

Overall, a good and informative read that I would definitely recommend—especially to history lovers and those interested in understanding today’s global challenges through the lens of the past.

Thank you to NetGalley for a free and advanced copy of this book.

[J Earl · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Coming Storm by Odd Arne Westad is an excellent example of how history can be used to warn us about future events by showing how past similarities played out. This isn't predictive but a warning about potentialities.

This is, in many ways, a history book. But not a pure history book in that its purpose is not to simply expound on the past but to make explicit what we can learn from it that can help us with our current world. So there are no digressions from the history since the purpose of the book is what some may think are digressions. If you understand the aim of the book you won't make the same misjudgement or experience the same disappointment. In other words, read it for what it is, not what you might have wanted.

Active readers will not only have a lot to consider here but will also be thankful Westad assumed a certain level of intelligence in his readers and didn't feel the need to repeat the purpose of the book every time a point was made about similarities. Early in this volume he explains why he thinks we can look at the period before WWI and draw parallels with what is happening now. He explains how he will demonstrate that idea and also highlight some big picture ideas for how to steer everything away from another global conflict. As long as you're capable of keeping that in mind while reading, you will have no problem understanding how the similarities operate.

I wasn't sure at first just how much I was going to buy into his overall argument, but by the end I was convinced of the potential for events to follow a path not too different than before. Other multipolar periods of history that came before aren't appropriate for comparison for several reasons. The weapons available before 1800 weren't truly weapons of mass destruction, they weren't capable of killing people who were not in the vicinity of where the weapon was deployed. Additionally, the "world" prior to the "age of discovery" was smaller, in fact, there were several "worlds" on our planet, so while there were widespread destructive wars, they weren't global and weren't going to become global.

I think if you read this without trying to make it seem like Westad is saying that there are exact substitutions for the powers between eras and/or that he is claiming the same things will happen now that happened then, you will be able to engage with the big picture without getting lost and thinking there were no connections made. The point is that there are multiple players each with the ability to start a global conflict, even if they are viewing their actions as being more regional and specific. Between alliances and the interconnected nature of every aspect of live globally, regional power plays have the potential to be the beginning of a catastrophic global war.

Again, this is a warning based on historical facts and similarities. These aren't predictions. If we act with these possibilities in mind we can avoid an outcome similar to what came before. That is one of the main benefits of viewing history as something more than a collection of facts and narratives somehow isolated from our current world. This volume is an example of how to use history properly.

Recommended for history buffs and, more importantly, those in policy positions or studying to get into positions influencing policy.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

First and foremost, a large thank you to NetGalley, Odd Arne Westad for providing me with a copy of this publication, which allows me to provide you with an unbiased review.

Always eager to read while educating myself in equal measure, I turned to this fascinating and intellectually rigorous work by Yale historian Odd Arne Westad. In this timely audiobook, Westad examines how the 21st-century world has moved away from the dominance of a single superpower—or even a bipolar order—and toward an increasingly unstable system of competing regional powers, each testing the limits of influence and control.

For much of the modern era, global politics—while far from peaceful—has been relatively predictable. Power blocs behaved in expected ways, and outcomes, if not benign, were often foreseeable. Westad persuasively argues that this predictability is eroding. Drawing compelling parallels to the pre–First World War era, he suggests the world is entering a phase where regional powers seek to consolidate influence over their spheres, preparing—sometimes openly, sometimes quietly—for confrontation. The result is a global landscape marked less by stability and more by strategic tension.

Westad’s analysis is grounded in both deep historical knowledge and a sharp reading of contemporary geopolitics. He carefully weaves together past and present, allowing listeners to trace how old patterns of alliance-building, rivalry, and miscalculation are resurfacing in new forms. His discussion of the United States’ changing role—particularly during the Trump years—and the resulting power vacuums filled by China, Russia, and other unexpected actors is especially thought-provoking. While Westad resists making firm predictions, his repeated references to the collapse of pre-1914 alliances linger uneasily in the listener’s mind.

The audiobook format works particularly well for this material. The narration is clear, measured, and well-paced, making complex arguments accessible without oversimplifying them. Westad’s ideas are given the space they need to breathe, allowing attentive listeners to absorb the many historical parallels and geopolitical “aha” moments along the way.

What I appreciated most is that this book is not history for history’s sake. Westad uses the past as a lens through which to understand the present—and possibly the future—without resorting to alarmism. His themes are thoughtfully developed and supported by real-world events, offering a narrative that is both academically sound and engaging for non-specialists.

With nuclear weapons, cyber warfare, shifting borders, and fragile alliances, Westad makes clear that the world is entering a period of profound uncertainty. Watching from the sidelines may no longer be an option. This audiobook does not offer easy answers, but it provides essential context for anyone trying to understand the forces shaping our increasingly unsettled world. Highly recommended for listeners with an interest in history, international relations, or global affairs.

Kudos, Mr. Westad, for a thoroughly exciting piece of writing.

Love/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/

[Catie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This audiobook was a compelling blend of history lesson and thoughtful reflection on the present moment. Westad walks readers through the political, economic, and social tensions of the 1910s that ultimately led to World War I, while continually drawing comparisons to what we’re seeing unfold in the world today.

What stood out most to me was how familiar many of these patterns felt — rising nationalism, shifting alliances, economic strain, and great-power competition — but on an even larger and more complex scale. Unlike the early 20th century, today’s global landscape includes powerful players in Asia who weren’t part of the equation during WWI, which adds another layer of tension and uncertainty to the parallels Westad explores.

As an audiobook, this worked very well. Brian Troxell’s narration was clear, steady, and easy to follow, which is especially important for dense nonfiction. His delivery made the material accessible without flattening its seriousness, and I found it easy to stay engaged even during more detailed historical sections.

Overall, this was an informative and timely listen — one that feels less like a warning shouted from history and more like a calm but urgent reminder to pay attention. A strong recommendation for readers who enjoy history, geopolitics, or nonfiction that connects the past directly to the present.

Thank you to Odd Arne Westad, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for an advanced listener copy of the audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

[Amy H. Sturgis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a timely, important, and thought-provoking book, a skillful example of how we may draw lessons from history while also appreciating the unique circumstances of the present day. Historian Odd Arne Westad unpacks the (all-too-familiar) issues that led the Great Powers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to be vulnerable to conflict and ultimately plunge into a devastating world war. Westad also offers a clear-eyed analysis of the present day and the various forces and challenges that make our world particularly complex -- and, if we are not aware and awake, combustible. The parallels Wested draws in order to illustrate how we might apply past lessons to current realities -- seeing Great Britain of the past in today's United States, or Germany's historical experience replicated in today's China -- are suggestive and useful without crossing the line into prediction. This is a nuanced analysis, perfect for anyone with interest in the either the project of studying World War I or the hope of avoiding World War III.

The excellent narration did justice to this insightful text.

Thank you to Odd Arne Westad, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for an advanced listener copy of the audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book did a great job illustrating the similarities between the world today and the world in 1914, and talked about what we can do to prevent a other Great Power war. I particularly enjoyed the analysis of what happened leading up to World War 1 and how it could have been prevented.

The author also does a good job of avoiding blatant bias, and doesn't go off on political tantrums like most authors would be tempted to do. I do think the book makes it sound like we're closer to World War 3 than we really are, but the author does a good job of explaining his position and makes a lot of great point. I highly recommend reading it.

[Charlotte Capuano · Rating 4 out of 5]

History doesn’t repeat itself, but often it rhymes. This book is fantastic for those who find themselves muttering “the signs” when reading the news. I had never even considered the comparison between Europe pre World War I and today’s world, but after reading this the similarities are so obvious. Well researched and well written, if you want something to cling to in the chaos of today’s world, this book is it.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ruh-Roh!

A bit dry and economics-heavy, but a solid look at the pre-WWI conditions that are playing out again on the world stage today. It’s cool because I’ve been preoccupied lately with the coming repeats of the US Civil War and WWII, so it’s nice to be reminded that WWI is also in the mix!

We are all gonna die.

Thank you to LibroFM for the review copy.

[April · Rating 4 out of 5]

Westad compares the circumstances that led to WWI with the geopolitical situation of today in order to make the case that major-power war is both possible and avoidable (and worth avoiding). He examines the complexities that led to war in 1914 with the parallels and possibilities of today with clarity.

[Prince Henry · Rating 4 out of 5]

5/5 stars
This book is about war and how conflict comes is at the hand of war. How it can make it worst, and this book give you something and promise you just that. I think it’s a great book to learn more about how conflict comes In front of war and power. How we can get ahead of conflict and start peace.

[Milena Pavlova- McCartney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful, thought-provoking, and definitely timely. Eloquently written and well researched, this book is a must-read in the current geopolitical situation.

[Susan Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit of a scary read about what a future war could look like.

[Beverly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you for choosing me to read and review this book. I look forward to receiving my copy.
I received my copy on February 2, 2026 and I'm going to start reading now.
Its February 4, 2026, and I just finished reading my book. It was so interesting. I agree with the author that we are living in a very dangerous time. It sure seems like even with all of our advancements and everything that we are able to accomplish, peace is the one thing that we just can't seem to get. It's scary.