From War to War
SPINNER, THOMAS J. Jr.
From War to War English History 1914-1945, by A. J. P. Taylor. Oxford University Press. 708 pp. $9.75. Reviewed by Thomas J. Spinner Jr. Tn early 1914 Britannia ruled the waves. By 1945, despite...
...The basic theme of Taylor's book —though he does not state it explicitly —is the failure of England (despite the growth of welfare legislation) to build a participating democracy in which all shall have the "opportunity for creative activity" and in which the "free development of each is the condition for the free development of all...
...URBAN WHITAKER is a professor of international relations at San Francisco State College...
...She wrote "Education and Income," "Spanish Harlem," and "An Anatomy of Poverty...
...Almost one million citizens of the British Empire were killed (part of an estimated total for all combatants of some ten million), and it is hard not to conclude that the Socialist International ought to have attempted a gigantic international strike against war in 1914...
...PATRICIA CAYO SEXTON is a professor of sociology at New York University...
...London—one of the major centers of diplomatic power and intrigue from the Eighteenth Century until 1945—is still a pleasant tourist site but it is no longer a capital in which the world's destiny is determined...
...Did foolish men make stupid decisions, or was England overwhelmed by underlying forces over which she could no longer exercise effective control...
...THE REVIEWERS PAT WAITERS is information director for the Southern Regional Council...
...Liberal England—which seemed to be falling apart in early 1914 as suffragettes threw bombs, labor unions planned a general strike, and Conservative politicians threatened to support an armed insurrection if home rule was granted to Ireland—suddenly rallied to the mystique of the nation when German armies entered Belgium, and, with but a few exceptions, the entire population supported the call to arms...
...The tragedy of English history in the inter-war period was the inability of the party of movement—the British Labor Party—to secure effective power because of weak leadership and the "politics of deference" which still serves to convince some that they should vote for their "betters...
...The capitals which now counted were Washington and Moscow —and, a few years later, Peking...
...If, as this reviewer believes, the Nineteenth Century was the "English Century," one is inevitably forced to ask how and why this great transformation took place...
...While A. J. P. Taylor is not entirely successful in answering these complex questions, he has written a superb book...
...She wrote "World Federal Government in Maximum Terms" and, with Georgia Lloyd, "Searchlight on Peace Plans...
...He is consistently provocative and challenging, and the ironies and paradoxes in which he delights are always based on solid historical fact...
...When it was finally over the vast majority of Englishmen thought only of going back to the "good old days...
...With this readable book Taylor may succeed in doing exactly that...
...Several years ago Taylor wrote: "No historian is worth his salt who has not felt some twinge of Macaulay's ambition—to replace the latest novel on the lady's dressing-table...
...He is a former city editor of The Atlanta Journal...
...JERRY RICHARD is a faculty member of Goddard College and is at work on a novel...
...This was a major difference from the general feeling in 1945, when there was an overwhelming desire to move forward into a new and better world—but timid leaders of the British Labor party were often more inclined to dance to the old tunes rather than to march forward boldly to the lilting strains of socialist transformation...
...It is all that one normally expects from an outstanding practitioner of the historical craft...
...It is unfortunate that, as ?. H. Carr observed, many people are willing to plan for war but not for peace...
...For Taylor does not know how to be dull...
...Instead of a short war, there was a long, brutal blood bath...
...By 1945, despite her heroic accomplishments in two world wars, England had become a power of the second rank...
...So remarkable was this response that conscription was not introduced until 1916...
...But this book is undoubtedly the finest analysis and best interpretation of the English people yet written for the period which began with Sir Edward Grey observing that the lamps of Europe would not be "lit again in our lifetime" and ended with atomic bombs being dropped on Japan...
...Taylor is excellent on the general strike of 1926, the astonishing twists and turns of Winston Churchill, the social history of the English people, the foreign policy of the Twenties and Thirties, and the extent to which both World Wars (and especially the second) served to give greater powers to the government and to create a form of state socialism...
...It is true that the socialist leaders were often men of limited vision, but their goal far transcended the shrewd calculations being made by the old ruling elites who apparently believed that a short war might serve to restore their declining power...
...THOMAS J. SPINNER JR...
...specializes in English history at the University of Vermont...
...Taylor' has written a splendid and fascinating book which proves that the historian can, and must, write for both his fellow scholars (there is a fine forty-page bibliography) and for the general public...
...EDITH WYNNER is working on a history of World War I peace initiatives...
...This does not mean, of course, that he is always correct, and he still displays that sometimes unfortunate tendency to strive for the startling remark which, while it may delight, may also distort and confuse the real issues under discussion...
Vol. 30 • July 1966 • No. 7
