Abstract
On the eve of the First World War, most of the staunch enemies of mankind were in retreat, at least in Europe. In most regions not one year of severe famine had occurred in the last sixty years. For most Europeans the standard of living was much higher than in the day of their grandmothers. Similarly their health had gained from the curbing of pneumonia, diphtheria, enteric fever, syphilis and even tuberculosis.
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Notes
Esperanto, Olympic Games and other peaceful portents: G. Blainey, The Causes of War (London, 1973 ) p. 23.
G. P. Gooch, History of Our Time, 1885–1913 (London, 1914 edn), pp. 248–9.
See also H. Butterfield on G. P. Gooch, in Dictionary of National Biography, 1961–1970 (Oxford, 1981 ) p. 439.
Cannibal and Herbert Spencer: Norman Angell, The Great Illusion: A Study of the Relation of Military Power to National Advantage (London, 1914 edn), p. 202.
Gilbert Murray on death toll: cited in H. A. L. Fisher, The History of Europe (London, 1946 edn), p. 1156 n.
Socialists’ expectation of short war: Sir Llewellyn Woodward, Prelude to Modern Europe 1865–1914 (London, 1972) pp. 263–4.
Hopes of a short war in 1914: G. Blainey, The Causes of War (London 1973) ch. 3
R. A. Preston, S. F. Wise, and H. O. Werner, Men in Arms: A Histoy of Warfare (London, 1962 ) p. 260.
War expenditure compared to national product: J. J. Spengler, ‘Population and Potential Power’, Studies in Economics and Economic History, M. Kooy, (ed.), ( London, 1972 ) p. 138.
W. Trotter, Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War (London, 1916) p. 256.
President Wilson, cited by H. G. Nicholas, The American Union (Penguin edn, 1950 ) p. 246.
The arms race perceived as cause of World War 1: G. Blainey, The Causes of War (London, 1973 ) pp 135–141.
Stanley Kauffmann, “U.S. and World Film: A Two-Way Exchange”, Dialogue, 1977, vol. 10, p. 101.
Stalin’s Scientists: Roy Medvedev, Let History Judge: The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism (London, 1971) pp. 227–8. For Stalin on eucalypts, see p. 523 n.
Tom Wright, A Trade Unionist in Russia (Sydney, 1928) esp. pp. 95–99.
Bertrand Russell, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (Boston, 1968) vol. 2, p. 143.
J. M. Keynes and The Economic Consequences of the Peace: see Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes, London, 1983, vol. 1, p. 394, for the book’s translations.
Forecasts of famine: J. Overbeek, History of Population Theories (Rotterdam, 1974) esp. pp. 91–2, 112–17, 136
E. M. East, Mankind at the Crossroads (New York, 1923 ) p. 347.
Australian scholar-official: W. D. Forsyth, The Myth of Open Spaces (Melbourne, 1942 ) p. 202.
The crisis of underpopulation: W. B. Reddaway, The Economics of a Declining Population (London, 1939 )
J. J. Spengler, France Faces Depopulation ( Durham, North Carolina, 1938 ).
Birth of the bomb: Banesh Hoffmann, Albert Einstein (Paladin paperback, London, 1975) ch. 10
Henri Michel, The Second World War (London, 1975) pp. 765–70.
Jacob Bronowski on physics: The Ascent of Man (London, 1973) pp. 330, 349.
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© 1988 Geoffrey Blainey
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Blainey, G. (1988). The Great War and Other Half-Shocks. In: The Great Seesaw. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-10086-6_8
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