Norman Angell

The Great Illusion A Study of the Relation of Military Power to National Advantage

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

American interest in the problems discussed here is hardly less vital than that of Europe. Being more persuaded than when the first American edition of this book was issued in 1910, it is certain that opinion in America will not be equiped for dealing with the problems arising out of the relations with the Spanish American states; with Japan; and with the Philippians; unless it has some fair understanding of the principles with which this book deals. Its general interest even goes farther than this; no great community like that of modern America can remain indifferent to the drift of general opinion throughout the world on matters wrapped up with issues so important as those of war and peace. That the tangible commercial and business interest of America are involved in these European events is obvious from the very factors of financial and commercial interdependence which forms the basis of the argument. That the interest of Americans are inextricably, if indirectly, bound up with those of Europe has become increasingly clear as can be proven by the barest investigation of the trend of political thought in this country.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bottom of the Hill Publishing
• Seitenzahl: 224
• Erscheinungstermin: 12. Juni 2017
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 235mm x 157mm x 17mm
• Gewicht: 484g
• ISBN-13: 9781483798646
• ISBN-10: 148379864X
• Artikelnr.: 48663349

Autorenporträt

Sir Ralph Norman Angell (26 December 1872 - 7 October 1967) was an English Nobel Peace Prize winner. He was a lecturer, journalist, author and Member of Parliament[1] for the Labour Party. Angell was one of the principal founders of the Union of Democratic Control. He served on the Council of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, was an executive for the World Committee against War and Fascism, a member of the executive committee of the League of Nations Union, and the president of the Abyssinia Association. He was made a Knight Bachelor in 1931 and awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1933 Angell is most widely remembered for his 1909 pamphlet, Europe's Optical Illusion, which was published the following year (and many years thereafter) as the book, The Great Illusion. (The anti-war film La Grande Illusion took its title from his pamphlet.) The thesis of the book was that the integration of the economies of European countries had grown to such a degree that war between them would be entirely futile, making militarism obsolete. This quotation from the "Synopsis" to the popular 1913 edition summarizes his basic argument. He establishes this apparent paradox, in so far as the economic problem is concerned, by showing that wealth in the economically civilized world is founded upon credit and commercial contract (these being the outgrowth of an economic interdependence due to the increasing division of labour and greatly developed communication). If credit and commercial contract are tampered with in an attempt at confiscation, the credit-dependent wealth is undermined, and its collapse involves that of the conqueror; so that if conquest is not to be self-injurious it must respect the enemy's property, in which case it becomes economically futile. Thus the wealth of conquered territory remains in the hands of the population of such territory. When Germany annexed Alsace, no individual German secured a single mark's worth of Alsatian property as the spoils of war. Conquest in the modern world is a process of multiplying by x, and then obtaining the original figure by dividing by x. For a modern nation to add to its territory no more adds to the wealth of the people of such nation than it would add to the wealth of Londoners if the City of London were to annex the county of Hertford