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War and the Liberal Conscience
For centuries liberal minded men have been horrified by the pain and waste of war. From Erasmus, who saw war above all as a product of stupidity, to the Marxists who see it as a matter of class conflict, they have produced social theories to account for its occurrence and have tried to devise means to end it.
Their prescriptions have been various. The central view of the Enlightenment was that wars would end when the ambitions of princes could be curbed by the sanity of ordinary men. At first the commercial classes seemed to be the new force that would produce this happy state, but by the end of the nineteenth century they themselves (the ‘capitalists’) were being stigmatized as the instigators of war.
Similarly, the nineteenth-century liberals at first believed that the rise of the new independent nation-states of Europe would lead to a permanent peace as the wishes of the masses (naturally peace-loving) were able to express themselves. Again, the supposed agents of peace were soon seen as a prime cause of wars.
Despite these contradictions there have been certain continuing themes in the search for a means to end wars, and one of the most enlightening things in this book is they way in which it is possible to see how these themes recur in subtly different forms in different periods of history. Professor Howard traces them from the renaissance to our own time, through the social, political and intellectual groups that gave birth to them.
Throughout the whole story runs the continuing contrast between those who hoped to find a single cause for the disease, leading to a lasting cure, and those who understood that, in Professor Howard’s words, ‘this was a task which needs to be tackled afresh every day of our lives’...
Their prescriptions have been various. The central view of the Enlightenment was that wars would end when the ambitions of princes could be curbed by the sanity of ordinary men. At first the commercial classes seemed to be the new force that would produce this happy state, but by the end of the nineteenth century they themselves (the ‘capitalists’) were being stigmatized as the instigators of war.
Similarly, the nineteenth-century liberals at first believed that the rise of the new independent nation-states of Europe would lead to a permanent peace as the wishes of the masses (naturally peace-loving) were able to express themselves. Again, the supposed agents of peace were soon seen as a prime cause of wars.
Despite these contradictions there have been certain continuing themes in the search for a means to end wars, and one of the most enlightening things in this book is they way in which it is possible to see how these themes recur in subtly different forms in different periods of history. Professor Howard traces them from the renaissance to our own time, through the social, political and intellectual groups that gave birth to them.
Throughout the whole story runs the continuing contrast between those who hoped to find a single cause for the disease, leading to a lasting cure, and those who understood that, in Professor Howard’s words, ‘this was a task which needs to be tackled afresh every day of our lives’...
143 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
3 people are currently reading
212 people want to read
About the author
Michael Eliot Howard
61 books78 followersSir Michael Eliot Howard was an English military historian, formerly Chichele Professor of the History of War, Honorary Fellow of All Souls College, Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford, Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History at Yale University, and founder of the Department of War Studies, King's College London.
In 1958, he co-founded the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
In 2013, Howard was described in the Financial Times as "Britain's greatest living historian". The Guardian described him as "Britain's foremost expert on conflict".
In 1958, he co-founded the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
In 2013, Howard was described in the Financial Times as "Britain's greatest living historian". The Guardian described him as "Britain's foremost expert on conflict".
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 30, 2011
It's a shame people do not read military history as much as they should. It teaches us about how we got to our current situation as well as cultural, political or economic history. Michael Howard is one of the greatest historians of the 20th century. His essays are the epitomes of distilled wisdom. In this short book he traces out how Western liberal thought, beginning from the 15th century, has reacted to war. An impressive book.
January 23, 2026
Excellent, excellent study from one of the most eminent military historians of the 20th century. It's actually a volume of essays, so it comes in at only 135 pages. But those pages are incredibly rich with analysis of 400 years of liberal thinking about war.
MH emphasizes certain strains running through liberal understandings of war and explores their inner tensions. Liberals have explained war's origins in many ways. Erasmus argued that war emerged from the interests of the aristocratic warrior elite. 18th century liberals like argued that it came from monarchical regimes, which had unchecked power and used war for conquest and the aggrandizement of the elite, and that ultimately only a world of democracies/republics could be free. Cobdenites argued that war came from imperialist/capitalist desire to carve out exclusive zones of control and that free trade was the best way to solve the problem of war. Others, like Woodrow Wilson or Norman Angell, claimed that war was an inevitable product of the immoral system of Metternichian balance of power politics. Mazzini and other liberal nationalists argued that war came from the oppression of minorities and the efforts of those minorities to break free; so in order to have liberal internationalism, there must first be a system of liberal states.
All of these liberal interpretations of war shaped their politics and foreign policy throughout this time span. It motivated ideas like international law, collective security, the republican peace, nationalism (but also, skepticism toward nationalism), and other programs. And yet, MH is mostly critical of liberal thinking on war. For example, he shows how nationalistic fervor in conflicts like Crimea and the World Wars shattered liberal beliefs that "the people want peace" and "only elites are bellicose." He shows the dilemma of the liberal belief (first expressed by Kant), that world order hinges on republican government, which creates the temptation to fight autocracies and create republican governments by force. He shows how bizarrely naive much liberal interwar thinking was and how it took major escalation by the Nazis to make them snap out of it. He then showed how the liberal underpinnings of the US containment strategy created rigidities and hypocrisies that plagued USFP in the COld War.
MH faults liberals for not understanding that the ultimate root of war is the anarchic nature of international politics and the perverse (but extremely hard to ignore) incentives this creates for states and leaders. I'm not sure I even agree with this (I'm very regime-centric in my understanding of war because I'm a liberal), but he may be right that liberals have too often discounted the anarchic roots of war and the wisdom/inevitability of some kind of balance of power politics. Still, MH admires liberals for feeling (as I feel) that human beings should not accept war as inevitable and should work to identify its causes on the hope that it can be minimized and deterred as much as possible. That hope, which is very much a modern perspective on life, is worth fighting for.
MH emphasizes certain strains running through liberal understandings of war and explores their inner tensions. Liberals have explained war's origins in many ways. Erasmus argued that war emerged from the interests of the aristocratic warrior elite. 18th century liberals like argued that it came from monarchical regimes, which had unchecked power and used war for conquest and the aggrandizement of the elite, and that ultimately only a world of democracies/republics could be free. Cobdenites argued that war came from imperialist/capitalist desire to carve out exclusive zones of control and that free trade was the best way to solve the problem of war. Others, like Woodrow Wilson or Norman Angell, claimed that war was an inevitable product of the immoral system of Metternichian balance of power politics. Mazzini and other liberal nationalists argued that war came from the oppression of minorities and the efforts of those minorities to break free; so in order to have liberal internationalism, there must first be a system of liberal states.
All of these liberal interpretations of war shaped their politics and foreign policy throughout this time span. It motivated ideas like international law, collective security, the republican peace, nationalism (but also, skepticism toward nationalism), and other programs. And yet, MH is mostly critical of liberal thinking on war. For example, he shows how nationalistic fervor in conflicts like Crimea and the World Wars shattered liberal beliefs that "the people want peace" and "only elites are bellicose." He shows the dilemma of the liberal belief (first expressed by Kant), that world order hinges on republican government, which creates the temptation to fight autocracies and create republican governments by force. He shows how bizarrely naive much liberal interwar thinking was and how it took major escalation by the Nazis to make them snap out of it. He then showed how the liberal underpinnings of the US containment strategy created rigidities and hypocrisies that plagued USFP in the COld War.
MH faults liberals for not understanding that the ultimate root of war is the anarchic nature of international politics and the perverse (but extremely hard to ignore) incentives this creates for states and leaders. I'm not sure I even agree with this (I'm very regime-centric in my understanding of war because I'm a liberal), but he may be right that liberals have too often discounted the anarchic roots of war and the wisdom/inevitability of some kind of balance of power politics. Still, MH admires liberals for feeling (as I feel) that human beings should not accept war as inevitable and should work to identify its causes on the hope that it can be minimized and deterred as much as possible. That hope, which is very much a modern perspective on life, is worth fighting for.
September 19, 2021
3.5/5
Bit introductory for me, though still learnt some ideas that the KCL War Studies dept founder has had to say. Overall concise. Now perhaps getting onto the German history which I’m relatively unfamiliar with.
Bit introductory for me, though still learnt some ideas that the KCL War Studies dept founder has had to say. Overall concise. Now perhaps getting onto the German history which I’m relatively unfamiliar with.
May 9, 2012
Sir Michael is one of the best historians of the 20th century, especially when it comes to war and British history. It must have been epic to watch these lectures in person.
It is impressive that he fit 500 years of the history of war and war philosophy in such a short book. The 1500-1792 material did not interest me too much. That probably has to do with personal preference, but that chapter is necessary in laying the groundwork for what a 'liberal' is, as defined by belief in human agency, democracy, international cooperation, international relations, etc. When he gets to the French Revolution and Napoleon, the book takes on an entirely new complexion.
The chapters on World War I and World II are enthralling and particularly incisive. WWI and WWII occupy special places in our collective memories, not only because we won both wars, but because they were instrumental in shaping the current world order. As such, the importance of liberalism is shaped through these wars and through their aftermaths. There are the international institutions and cooperation, but Sir Michael tackles an important problem: democracies do not go to war with each other, but they still demonstrate an amazing amount of bellicosity. It was theorized that democracy was the essence for peace. Fascism by definition is war. Democracy, as defined in opposition to Fascism, is peace. However, it has not turned out that way.
The chapters on WWI and WWII are excellent because they explain the psyche of the British public. Obviously, Britain was involved in arms races with Germany and other European nations at the time. That manifested in colonialism in Africa, navy buildups, the militarization of society, and so on. Prussian militarism, however, was not just a focus of the British. Russia's history has been concerned with the same phenomenon. Prussian militarism split the British public in the 1930s with the rise of Chancellor Hitler and Nazism. Some prominent figures in the British government - Labour and Liberal Democrats mostly - seemed to be more okay not just with appeasement but in Germany's right to annex land. The apparition of Versailles animated their beliefs. The insights on the British public and WWI are fascinating, as well, but I knew most of that already. The enthusiasm for that war was so popular that socialist organizations and pacifist groups had to agree to pursue war just to retain support. I believe Italy is the only country in which socialist parties did not support war.
The insights from pursuing an international peace are cursorily mentioned in relation to Korea and Vietnam, as well as American foreign policy. Howard points to Kissinger as reversing traditional liberal foreign policy by playing the power game. The recent material is speculative in a way, but it does show that the liberal idea of peace has probably come to a close (Howard writes after Vietnam).
It is impressive that he fit 500 years of the history of war and war philosophy in such a short book. The 1500-1792 material did not interest me too much. That probably has to do with personal preference, but that chapter is necessary in laying the groundwork for what a 'liberal' is, as defined by belief in human agency, democracy, international cooperation, international relations, etc. When he gets to the French Revolution and Napoleon, the book takes on an entirely new complexion.
The chapters on World War I and World II are enthralling and particularly incisive. WWI and WWII occupy special places in our collective memories, not only because we won both wars, but because they were instrumental in shaping the current world order. As such, the importance of liberalism is shaped through these wars and through their aftermaths. There are the international institutions and cooperation, but Sir Michael tackles an important problem: democracies do not go to war with each other, but they still demonstrate an amazing amount of bellicosity. It was theorized that democracy was the essence for peace. Fascism by definition is war. Democracy, as defined in opposition to Fascism, is peace. However, it has not turned out that way.
The chapters on WWI and WWII are excellent because they explain the psyche of the British public. Obviously, Britain was involved in arms races with Germany and other European nations at the time. That manifested in colonialism in Africa, navy buildups, the militarization of society, and so on. Prussian militarism, however, was not just a focus of the British. Russia's history has been concerned with the same phenomenon. Prussian militarism split the British public in the 1930s with the rise of Chancellor Hitler and Nazism. Some prominent figures in the British government - Labour and Liberal Democrats mostly - seemed to be more okay not just with appeasement but in Germany's right to annex land. The apparition of Versailles animated their beliefs. The insights on the British public and WWI are fascinating, as well, but I knew most of that already. The enthusiasm for that war was so popular that socialist organizations and pacifist groups had to agree to pursue war just to retain support. I believe Italy is the only country in which socialist parties did not support war.
The insights from pursuing an international peace are cursorily mentioned in relation to Korea and Vietnam, as well as American foreign policy. Howard points to Kissinger as reversing traditional liberal foreign policy by playing the power game. The recent material is speculative in a way, but it does show that the liberal idea of peace has probably come to a close (Howard writes after Vietnam).
February 9, 2016
Based on a series of lectures, this book analyses the history of liberalism and how it has conceptualized war throughout history. Engages with the idea that liberal states go to war in order that they shouldn't go to war, and contrasts this with earlier concepts of imperialism as well as fascist and communist conceptualizations of ware.
June 11, 2013
Excellent and still insightful three decades later.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews