He treats Germany's preparations for war as irrelevant because they failed. He minimizes all evidence of German prewar hostility to Britain, because it reflected just a sense of impotence. He overloads causal responsibility on Britain. The Germans acted because others made them do so since they did not motivate their own actions, whatever they did was unavoidable, thus irrelevant for analytical purposes. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War (London, 1961), Ferguson treats German policy solely as a condition for, and not a cause of, events. This argument rests on an account of diplomacy that varies between incompetent and perverse. The great problem is its thesis: Germany started World War I but Britain caused it English intervention alone made war disaster and everyone would have gained had Germany won quickly and cheaply. One would like to condemn The Pity of War, but that would not be fair one would like to praise it, but standards cannot be forgotten. By Nail Ferguson (New York, Basic Books, 1999) 563 pp. Journal of Interdisciplinary History 31.2 (2000) 254-256 In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |