Causes
of war
Complementing the Memorials commemorative function, that of
remembering and honouring all who served Australia in time of war, is
research into the causes of war. The ultimate aim of such research,
the prevention of future wars, follows the tradition of the Memorials
founder Charles Bean, as well as the heart-felt wishes of veterans generally,
their families and others everywhere. At the Memorials opening
in Canberra on Armistice Day 1941 the Governor-General, Lord Gowrie,
anticipated how future visitors would respond to the galleries and the
commemorative area: every one of them I am firmly convinced will
declare, and will declare with no uncertain voice, never again, never
again. Indeed, for our children today, and of theirs tomorrow,
the solution to the vexed problem of wars prevention is critical
if, to quote the UN Charter we are to save future
generations from the scourge of war.
As the relevant literature is vast, the sources cited below represent
but a useful starting point. The two types of sources, books and journals and websites, complement
one another, for while increasingly, more and more valuable sources
are available online (at great convenience and little cost) there remains
a great deal of highly significant material that is not. Accordingly,
valuable insights can be gained by selecting from both sources.
Researched
by Dr Ian Buckley
1.
Books and journals
Introduction
For convenience this section is divided into Causes of war General, and Causes of particular wars. In the
books and journal articles cited, the emphasis of most is on long-term
underlying factors which, together, cause wars. Some works deal with
such causes in theoretical terms, but frequently the most convincing
evidence comes from historical analyses of particular wars undertaken
by historians or key political figures of the time. For example, in
attempting to understand Britains or Australias reasons
for involvement in the First World War, it is highly illuminating to
go to Winston Churchills The world crisis(191115)
and to Billy Hughess war-time speeches, collected in The
day and after (1916). Similarly, for the European background
to the Second World War, Churchills The gathering storm and
Lord Robert Cecils All the way provide vital
insights.
Significant background considerations apply also to three broad areas,
each concerned with understanding the evolution of the human species
as a societal animal, from prehistoric to modern times. Each aims at
conveying something of what has brought us to where we are, each providing
insights as to how injustices and tensions may arise. The first relates
to how humans made the transition from hunter-gatherer to settled agriculture
and how, over time, the distribution of resources within and between
human societies became less and less even.(e.g., Ronald Wrights A
short history of progress (2004); and Jared Diamonds Guns,
germs and steel (1998)) The second, aims at a fuller understanding
of the motivations behind the formation of nation states with their
exaggerated inequities, most critically over the distribution of and
access to land; and the drive to dominate other states.(e.g., Sir Thomas
Mores Utopia) The third area, which stems from the
ongoing expansion of technology and international trade since the Industrial
Revolution, aims at improved recognition of the social forces underpinning
the development of Empires, Empire rivalry and consequent wars. See,
e.g., Adam Smiths Wealth of nations (1776; 1999
& online), Hobsons Imperialism: a study (1902 & online),
Marcus Cunliffes The age of expansion, 18481917
(1974), Michael Edwardes The west in Asia, 18501914
(1967), Barbara Tuchmans The proud tower (1980).
A.
Causes of war General
Geoffrey
Blainey, The causes of war, 3rd ed., New York, 1988
Marcus Cunliffe, The
age of expansion, 18481917, London, 1974
Jared Diamond, Guns,
germs and steel, London, 1998
Jared Diamond, Collapse:
how societies choose to fail or succeed, New York, 2005
Michael
Edwardes, The west in Asia, 18501914, London, 1967
Albert Einstein
& Sigmund Freud, Why war?, International Journal
of Group Tensions 1 (JanuaryMarch 1971) 325 (An
exchange of letters between Einstein and Freud in 1932)
John Hobson, Imperialism: a study, 3rd ed.,
London, 1902, 1938.
Michael
Howard, The causes of war: historians and the problem of power, Encounter 58
(March 1982) 2230
Michael
Howard, The causes of war and other essays, Cambridge, Mass.,
1983
Michael
Howard, The causes of war, Wilson Quarterly 8
(1984) 90103
Michael
Howard, The lessons of history, Oxford, 1993
Dominic
Johnson, Overconfidence and war: the havoc and glory of positive
illusions, Cambridge, Mass., 2004
Jack Levy,
Declining power and the preventive motivation for war, World
politics, 40: 1 (October 1987) 82107
Sir Thomas
More, Utopia, Introduction by John Warrington,
London, 1955.
Philip Noel-Baker, The
first world disarmament conference (19321933) and why it failed,
Oxford, 1979
Pugwash:
Eliminating the causes of war, 50th Pugwash Conference on
Science and World affairs, Cambridge, 2000
John Rawls, Justice
as fairness: a restatement, Cambridge, Mass., 2001
Adam Smith, The wealth of nations, books
IV (1776), London, 1999.
Journal
of peace research, 18: 1 (1981) (six articles on various aspects of research into
the causes of war)
Barbara
Tuchman, The march of folly, London, 1984
Ronald Wright, A
short history of progress, Toronto, 2004
B. Causes of particular
wars (from the Boer War to the Korean War)
The
Boer War
Anthony
Nutting, Scramble for Africa: the great trek to the Boer War,
London, 1970
Craig Wilcox, Australias
Boer War: the war in South Africa, 18991902, Melbourne, 2002
Keith Wilson,
The Boer War in the context of Britains imperial problems,
in Keith Wilson, ed., The international impact of the Boer War,
New York, 2001, 158167
First
World War
Winston
Churchill, Liberalism and the Social Problem, London,
1909.
Winston
Churchill, The world crisis, vol. I (191114), London,
1927
Winston
Churchill, The world crisis, vol. II (1915), London, 1927
Winston
Churchill, The aftermath, London, 1944
Marcus Cunliffe, The
age of expansion, 18481917, London, 1974
G. Lowes
Dickinson, The international anarchy, London, 1926
G. Lowes
Dickinson, The European anarchy, New York,
1917.
Michael
Edwardes, The west in Asia 1850-1914, London, 1967
Martin Gilbert, A
history of the twentieth century, vol. I (190033), London,
1997
G.P. Gooch, History
of modern Europe, 18781919, London, 1923
G.P. Gooch, Before
the war: studies in diplomacy, vol. I, London, 1936
G.P. Gooch, Before
the war: studies in diplomacy, vol. II, London, 1938
Ian Hamilton, A
staff officers scrap-book, London, 1905
John Hobson, Imperialism: a study, 3rd edition,
London, 1902, 1938.
William
Hughes, The Day and after, London, 1916. Excerpts online.
Alan Moorehead, Gallipoli,
Melbourne, 1989
John Mordike, We
should do this thing quietly: Japan and the great deception in
Australian defence policy, 19111914, Canberra, 2002
Barbara
Tuchman, The proud tower: a portrait of the world before the
war, 18901914, New York, 1970
Barbara
Tuchman, August 1914, London, 1980
Keith Wilson,
The Boer War in the context of Britains imperial problems,
in Keith Wilson, ed., The international impact of the Boer War,
New York, 2001, 15867
Keith Wilson, The making and putative implementation
of a British foreign policy of gesture, December 1905 to August 1914:
The Anglo-French entente revisited, Canadian
Journal of History 31 (1996) 227255
Second
World War
Lord Robert
Cecil, All the way, London, 1949
Winston
Churchill, The aftermath, London, 1944
Winston
Churchill, The Second World War, vol. I, The gathering storm,
London, 1985
Martin Gilbert, A
history of the twentieth century, vol. I, (190033) London,
1997
Martin Gilbert, A
history of the twentieth century, vol. II , (193351) London,
1998
Martin Gilbert, The
roots of appeasement, London, 1966
Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, London,
1992
John Maynard
Keynes, The economic consequences of the peace, London,
1920
Basil Liddel
Hart, History of the Second World War, London, 1970
Philip Noel-Baker, The
first world disarmament conference (19321933) and why it failed,
Oxford, 1979
The
Vietnam War
Barbara
Tuchman, America betrays herself in Vietnam, in The
march of folly, London, 1984, 289-474.
Michael
Sexton, War for the asking: Australias Vietnam secrets,
Ringwood, 1981
The
Korean War
Bruce Cumings, Koreas
place in the sun, New York, 1997
Bruce Cumings,
Wrong again, in London Review of Books, 25:
23 (3 December 2003)
Gavan McCormack, Making sense of the Korean crisis
2.
Websites
Introduction
Many of these sites deal with the third problem area mentioned in
Introduction (1), that of grasping the effects the Industrial Revolution
continues to have, not only on production, overseas expansion and trade,
but on resource competition and environmental degradation. It seems
essential to look more widely for possible solutions. For as we have
seen both historically and still today, the less-than-sane extension
of these expansive trends has resulted in unbridled competition both
for resources and markets, consequent mutually counter-productive wars, and environmental
assaults of such magnitude as to threaten all. A possible alternative
approach to the worlds ever-accelerating production might be to
limit it but, by following the advice of Adam Smith, ensure that the
domestic benefits are distributed more evenly, thus sharply reducing
environmental despoliation, production gluts, extremes of international
trade competition, thereby, one hopes, sustaining our life-giving environment and making
wars a thing of the past.
Web
addresses
Causes of war (bibliography
compiled by Joan Phillips)
Archive for the history of economic thought
Australian history: selected websites (compiled
by the National Library of Australia)
Australias foreign wars: origins, costs, future (essays
by Ian Buckley)
Best of history sites
The British Empire (compiled by Stephen
Luscombe)
History websites (compiled
by Princeton Library)
Internet history source book project (compiled
by Paul Halsall of Fordham University)
Modern world history
Online library of liberty
Patriots Three, (Billy Hughes, Lloyd George
and Keith Murdoch during the First World War) Jill
Kitson, ABC, Radio National, August, 2001.
Rise to power: professor David Kennedy
on American history (ABC/BB, 21 October 2001)
Schools of thought (compiled
by Gonçalo L. Fonseca)
The United
States strategic bombing surveys for European War and Pacific War.
The Victorian web
WWW-VL history central catalogue (compiled
by the European University Institute, Florence, Italy)
The
World War 1 document archive