Volume 12, Number 1 · January 16, 1969
That War Again
By A.J.P. Taylor
The Origins and Legacies of World War I
by D.F. Fleming
Doubleday, 352 pp., $6.95
The United States and the League of Nations: 1918-1920
by D.F. Fleming
Russell & Russell, 593 pp., $15.00
The United States and World Organization: 1920-1933
by D.F. Fleming
AMS Press, 569 pp., $15.00
Combatants fight while a war is on. Historians fight about the war when it is over. Few topics have been so fertile in historical disputes as war origins. The most ruthless aggressor likes to claim that he was provoked into war by the other side. No doubt Attila used to grumble that he would have remained a peaceful shepherd in Asia if the Romans had not offended his moral sensibilities by their vulgar luxury. In the nineteenth century, we know, the redskins were always the aggressors, and even General Custer set out on his massacres with the utmost reluctance. The earliest job of the historian was to justify the wars of his chieftain, and most historians have remained true to their assignment. Nearly all school textbooks and most academic historians still conclude that their own nation has been more often right than wrong. If American historians dispute this about themselves, they will endorse it about Russian historians, and the Russians feel the same the other way round.
Review, 2426 words
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