The great illusion: a study of the relation of military power in nations to their economic and social advantage

by Norman Angell

This book was digitized and reprinted from the collections of the University of California Libraries. It was produced from digital images created through the libraries’ mass digitization efforts. The digital images were cleaned and prepared for printing through automated processes. Despite the cleaning process, occasional flaws may still be present that were part of the original work itself, or introduced during digitization. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found online in the HathiTrust Digital Library at www.hathitrust.org.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, Economics, Philosophy, War, Classics

448 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1909

About the author

British politician Sir Norman Angell won the Nobel Prize of 1933 for peace.

This most famous author in 1909 wrote The Great Illusion , a best-selling publication, which sold more than a million copies, translated into 25 languages.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_...

Reviews

[André · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Great Illusion, also known as Europe's Optical Illusion, is one of the seminal texts of the idealist/liberal school of thought in the discipline of International Relations - which, incidentally, did not exist when Angell first published the book. It is one of the clearest, most articulate, accessible works of political theory and despite dramatic political shifts since its publication, its core thesis has not lost a shred of relevancy.

Angell's core argument is that warfare is futile due to global economic interdependence. The gains of victory, according to his thinking, are always outweighed by the costs. His argument is not that economic interdependence renders war impossible, as it is sometimes misrepresented. The book came out only a few short years before World War I, and rather than refuting his contention, the futility of the absolute destruction of Europe created by the war is a stunning affirmation of his thesis.

Personally, I use this book regularly in my academic work and have read it for pleasure as well. It constitutes essential reading for any student of International Relations, for any anti-war activist, for every pro-war activist, and for anyone with more than just a passing interest in the dynamics and implications of warfare.

[BrokenTune · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not an economist, politician, historian, nor do I have an academic background in international relations. I simply enjoyed The Great Illusion as a work of its time.

It does make for a strange read because Angell has some very good points, well structured arguments and touches on the great fears of the pre-war nations. Pre-WW I, that is.
And this is where it becomes difficult: On every point that Angell uses as an argument of why there is very little risk of an impending war, history has obviously argued against him - and won.

Angell does not only look at the popular sentiments of his time from the British perspective but also tries to include the views of French and German arguments by citing numerous newspapers and other publications. The question I had, though, is how representative those sources were, because, again, history has taught us that they were mistaken.

The Great Illusion is still a good read. Despite of its obvious misconceptions, it offers a detailed insight into both the fears of the generation that will lose itself in the Great War but it also offers an insight into the idealism and the optimism that was still held by a liberal minority.

[Mihai Zodian · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Great Illusion is a classic of International Relations, still worth reading today. Alongside Kant`s Perpetual Peace, it contains the best bourgeois arguments in favor of abolishing war. Norman Angell was a highly active publicist at the beginning of the 20th century, an era marked by protectionist rivalry between great powers, like our time. The analogy of the situation makes it worth reading now, to be better able to understand the pitfalls of our time.

The Great Illusion book started as a pamphlet and retained its polemical tone. It was one of several papers written before World War I arguing that the cost of fighting would be too high for the gains that it promised. It continued the tradition of the doux commerce, and of the Manchester school of free trade. Its contemporary avatars are the rational-choice theories about war, the European Union`s common market, and globalist arguments.

In The Great Illusion, Norman Angell thought that, in modern conditions, war was not worth its costs. A materialistic aggressor had better options than grabbing the land and the people of other states, like civilian economic activities. The reason was that trade and industry relied on means other than brute force to produce welfare, on constant activities, like a flux instead of a treasure. This argument criticized imperialist, protectionist, and nationalist ideas of his day.

The Great Illusion, the idea that war was profitable in a strictly material sense, was connected to various holistic and rigid beliefs. Contrary to these, Norman Angell saw human nature as perfectible and was a believer in the normative power of civilizations. He also promoted a liberal perspective of the state as a pluralist institution. His polemic was very influential when it was published in 1910, and it continues even today.

Maybe his critics were right that the principles were too idealistic. In The Great Illusion, Norman Angell expected that reasonable people would be able to find some agreement and prevent major wars. He was naïve in the same way as rational choice and evolutionary theories are naïve: they expect too much from utility. The current rebuttal of free trade by the Trump administration will have comparable results to those of the last century: more suffering and conflicts.

[Tommy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Angell makes some interesting points in this book. His description of the dynamics of the economy and how military conquering and economic restriction benefits no one, including the person who initiated it to gain advantage.

Angell makes good use of metaphors to explain his ideas simply but can often harp on his points on not move forward.

All in all there are some good ideas and explanations in this book and it does explain the neutral (and often detrimental) effects of imperialism and militarism on the economy.

[Mark Hackl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ironically written five years before World War I, this book's idealistic notions were both proven and disproven in short order. The consequences were proven, but the deterrent of mutually assured economic destruction is quickly disproven as Europe devolved into war in 1914.

I think the modern value of this book is to illustrate folly in this type of thinking. The same arguments could be made today about global economic interdependence, yet an unmanaged chain of events could still yield results rivaling 1914.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a core text in international relations and is the best one-stop-shop for quintessential commercial pacifism. Angell builds on Adam Smith and Thomas Paine to make an air tight case for how market capitalism and democratic governments promote peace. Agree with it or not, this is an extremely influential theory of international relations.

[Samuel Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Improvement came finally, not from better intention, but from an acuter use of the intelligence of men, from hard mental work." (pg. 190)

[Christopher Byram · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first discovered this book when it was referenced on Khan Academy, in the article 'READ: Capitalism and World War I', in Unit 7, in the course 'World History Project - Origins to the Present'. The article states that the author, a British journalist, wrote in this book, first published in 1910, that European powers would be financially devastated if they entered into a war with each other. He wrote on p.31 it was "because of the internationalization and delicate interdependence of our credit-built finance and industry". In other words, the economies of the nations of the world at the start of the twentieth century were already intricately woven in economic interdependence (what we would today call globalization or interconnection). If Europe went to war, then the financial systems built upon this interdependence would crumble. World markets would then crash and businesses that relied on capitalist systems would be devastated.

[Hellen Ameida · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐
Acredito que de tempos em tempos, algumas leituras precisam ser revisitadas, sobretudo um clássico que, além de fazer parte do debate de relações Internacionais, faz parte da disciplina de Relações Internacionais.
Nenhuma teoria parte de pressupostos inocentes, mas de um dado momento histórico, de um gênero, uma nacionalidade, um propósito... Angell foi, acima de tudo um homem do seu tempo, que contribuiu e iniciou um debate super importante, além de contrariar a máxima de que a guerra só traz benefícios e tentar solucionar com a educação.
Particularmente, face ao século XXI e o ano de 2021, Angell tem um tom de ingenuidade e esperança.

[Luke Ingram · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had initially rated this a 3/5 but on a second reading it gets a solid 4/5. The arguments are focused and eloquent, if appearing a little obvious at times, and they attack a point of view that is perennial - that the citizens of an imperialist country benefit from it's military conquest of other nations, and that without a strong military trade could be "stolen" by other nations. The book points to the better economic performance of countries with much less military expenditure, and asks, given the prevailing view of the time in Britain of allowing the colonies to determine their own destiny, just how exactly Britain is supposed to be benefitting from "owning" its colonies in this sense? On the contrary, the book argues Britain would have more sway on the countries outside its dominion, as it need not be worried about internal rebellion of the colonies.

[Quinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the book, I think a lot of the content is correct in its assertions.

with the exception that it conclusions are so provably false. the book proclaims that civilized nations have no reason to go to war, and never will.

WW1 and WW2 happened soon after it was published.

[Randy Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not an actual review just a note for myself. Another instance of The World seeing it's end in front of itself, but being unable to look away nor divert course, continues to play out the hand that is being dealt (I think Peppo might have been the link to the other)

[Masatoshi Nishimura · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a easy-to-read concise book. His assumption against the impossibility of going to war was all wrong. But, still it's a good read from historical point of view.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

verbose, academic, dusty. but interesting points. i ended up skimming after page 100.

[Valay Agarawal · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book well-written, and still relevant after more than 100 years.

[Paul Beaulieu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Angell makes a good argument that cooperation between nations would be more economical advantageous (for both parties) than conquest of one nation by another. His opinion that human nature is mutable and that we are not necessarily bound to remain bellicose in our geopolitical relations of the future (the book was published in 1911) is also noteworthy (in his opinion this is proven by the decline of the dueling tradition in the Angl0-Saxons realms at a time when such practice still existed in a certain form in Continental European countries). However, on this point I have a metaphysical critique:
1. The nature of a thing (like, a human being for instance) is either static and unchanging or if it is changing, its nature can no longer be known merely by what the thing is but rather by understanding the dynamics of how a thing changes through time. In the case of biological organisms: an understanding of the way in which genetic mutations will alter the behaviour of an organism.
2.Given (according to Angell) that a human being's nature can change, we see that he implies that such changes occur when a certain set of conditions occur in the progress of civilization (such as material well-being and increase in technology and communications network). However, since genetic evolution is the one and only way in which a human being's nature can change over time, it is impossible that human beings suddenly all mutate in a short time and in a certain direction simply by reaching a certain point on the road of civilization.
3.Therefore, it is more likely that we, in fact, do not understand human nature properly and that a new environment (causing a change in human behaviour such as increased international cooperation) is revealing this fact of our ignorance of our own nature to us, rather than that human nature itself is changing.

In other words, the advances in technology and science and the inevitability of international economic interdependence in the future is revealing to us the extent (and limits) of humans' capacity to cooperate.

[Maxime L · Rating 5 out of 5]

Norman Angell develops his theory about the increased economic cost of war for European great powers because of the new economic interdependence. His theory isn't that war is obsolete because of interdependence, but that war isn't economically profitable. However, other reasons can lead countries to go to war.