The Great IllusionFirst published in 1909, The Great Illusion sets out to answer one of the greatest questions in human history: Why is there war? Specifically, Angell wishes to discuss why there is war between the countries of Europe, which seem to always be at one another's throats. Angell refutes the belief that military power results in greater wealth and instead proposes that advanced economies based on trade and contract law can only generate value in the absence of military upset. War destroys any wealth that conquerors may have wanted to obtain, making the whole enterprise pointless. A deep understanding of this would, then, end the need for war. Students of history, political science, and peace studies will find much to ponder and much to argue with in this classic text. British journalist and politician SIR RALPH NORMAN ANGELL (1872-1967) was an executive for the World Committee against War and Fascism and a member of the executive committee of the League of Nations Union. Knighted in 1931, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1933. From 1905 to 1912, he was the Paris editor for the Daily Mail, and served as a Labour MP from 1929 to 1931. He is also the author of Peace Theories and the Balkan War and The Fruits of Victory. |
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Page x
... survival of the fittest ; it involves the survival of the less fit . The idea that the struggle between nations is a part of the evolutionary law of man's advance involves a profound misreading of the biological analogy . The warlike ...
... survival of the fittest ; it involves the survival of the less fit . The idea that the struggle between nations is a part of the evolutionary law of man's advance involves a profound misreading of the biological analogy . The warlike ...
Page xv
... survival - Wherein modern conditions differ from ancient -The profound change effected by Division of Labour- The delicate interdependence of international finance- Attila and the Kaiser - What would happen if a German invader looted ...
... survival - Wherein modern conditions differ from ancient -The profound change effected by Division of Labour- The delicate interdependence of international finance- Attila and the Kaiser - What would happen if a German invader looted ...
Page xviii
... survival of the unfit - Spanish method and English method in the New World - The virtues of military training - The Dreyfus case - The threatened Germanization of England- " The war which made Germany great and Germans small " PAGES 222 ...
... survival of the unfit - Spanish method and English method in the New World - The virtues of military training - The Dreyfus case - The threatened Germanization of England- " The war which made Germany great and Germans small " PAGES 222 ...
Page 4
... survival of the fittest , that the weakest go to the wall , and that all life , sentient and non - sentient , is but a life of battle . The sacrifice involved in armament is the price which nations pay for 4 THE GREAT ILLUSION.
... survival of the fittest , that the weakest go to the wall , and that all life , sentient and non - sentient , is but a life of battle . The sacrifice involved in armament is the price which nations pay for 4 THE GREAT ILLUSION.
Page 17
... survival of the fittest in the never - ending struggle for existence . . . . Our yearning for disarmament , our respect for the tender plant of Non- conformist conscience , and the parrot - like repetition of the misleading formula that ...
... survival of the fittest in the never - ending struggle for existence . . . . Our yearning for disarmament , our respect for the tender plant of Non- conformist conscience , and the parrot - like repetition of the misleading formula that ...
Contents
| 3 | |
| 13 | |
| 26 | |
| 46 | |
| 62 | |
THE INDEMNITY FUTILITY | 80 |
HOW COLONIES ARE OWNED | 97 |
THE FIGHT FOR THE PLACE IN THE SUN | 119 |
UNCHANGING HUMAN NATURE | 200 |
DO THE warlike NATIONS INHERIT THE EARTH? | 222 |
CHAPTER V | 243 |
PSY CHOLOGICAL RESULTS | 257 |
A FALSE ANALOGY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES | 289 |
PART III | 315 |
THE RELATION OF DEFENCE TO AGGRESSION | 317 |
ARMAMENT BUT NOT ALONE ARMAMENT | 327 |
THE BEARING OF RECENT HISTORY | 138 |
PART II | 159 |
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CASE FOR WAR | 161 |
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CASE FOR PEACE | 173 |
IS THE POLITICAL REFORMATION POSSIBLE? | 337 |
METHODS | 350 |
INDEX 363371 | 363 |
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Common terms and phrases
Admiral Mahan advantage aggression Alsace-Lorraine American Anglo-Saxon Argentina armaments army bank Bank of England become Belgium Britain British Empire Canada casus belli chapter civilization co-operation Cobdenite Colonies commercial conception condition conflict conquered conqueror conquest Daily Mail defence depends domination Dreadnoughts economic England English Europe European fact factors fight foreign France Frederic Harrison French futile German German Empire Germany's Government Homer Lea human nature ideals impossible indemnity industrial interdependence interest involved labour less live London man's markets matter means ment militarist military power millions modern moral Morocco Mother Country motive nations navy neighbours organism patriotism peace physical force political population possessions possible profit prosperity pugnacity question race realize religious result rival rôle Russia social soldier South Africa Spain Spanish struggle survival Switzerland tendency territory thing thousand tion to-day trade tribute truth warlike wealth whole
Popular passages
Page 226 - We do not admire the man of timid peace. We admire the man who embodies victorious effort ; the man who never wrongs his neighbor ; who is prompt to help a friend ; but who has those virile qualities necessary to win in the stern strife of actual life.
Page 171 - The weakness of so much merely negative criticism is evident — pacificism makes no converts from the military party. The military party denies neither the bestiality nor the horror, nor the expense ; it only says that these things tell but half the story. It only says that war is worth them ; that, taking human nature as a whole, its wars are its best protection against its weaker and more cowardly self, and that mankind cannot afford to adopt a peace-economy.
Page 166 - Krieges," by SR Steinmetz, is a good example. War, according to this author, is an ordeal instituted by God, who weighs the nations in its balance. It is the essential form of the state, and the only function in which peoples can employ all their powers at once and convergently. No victory is possible save as the resultant of a totality of virtues, no defeat for which some vice or weakness is not responsible. Fidelity, cohesiveness, tenacity, heroism, conscience, education, inventiveness, economy,...
Page 39 - Therefore, a prudent ruler ought not to keep faith when by so doing it would be against his interest, and when the reasons which made him bind himself no longer exist. If men were all good, this precept would not be a good one; but as they are bad, and would not observe their faith with you, so you are not bound to keep faith with them.
Page 63 - If Germany were extinguished to-morrow, the day after to-morrow there is not an Englishman in the world who would not be the richer. Nations have fought for years over a city or a right of succession ; must they not fight for two hundred and fifty million pounds of yearly commerce...
Page 176 - State of its own or fear of such consequences to itself through the deliberate aggression of a rival having that particular end in view. . . . The fundamental proposition of the book is a mistake. Nations are under no illusion as to the unprofitableness of war in itself. . . . The entire conception of the work is itself an illusion, based upon a profound misreading of human action. To regard the world as governed by selfinterest only is to live in a non-existent world, an ideal world, a world possessed...
Page 224 - China has already found, that in this world the nation that has trained itself to a career of unwarlike and isolated ease is bound in the end to go down before other nations which have not lost the manly and adventurous qualities.
Page 170 - War is one of the conditions of progress, the sting which prevents a country from going to sleep, and compels satisfied mediocrity itself to awaken from its apathy.