I'm only about half way through this thoughtful and candid history of wars -- both hot and cold -- in the last century, so I might edit some of this later. Right now, Niall Ferguson's take on the causes of war strike me as fairly original. I don't see much of "the same old thing" that some others have remarked upon, except of course that, in describing these world conflicts some of the same newsreel footage is used.
It's odd because, judging from Ferguson's background in economic history, one would imagine him to be a materialist. Instead, the argument he seems to be pushing in this documentary is that one of the more important features of waging war is not so much economics as ethnocentrism -- a sense of "us" against "them", with "them" being infinitely inferior to "us" and worthy of deportation or extermination.
Well, there's no question that a sense of what Emile Durkheim called "mechanical solidarity" is important in warfare. During the Battle of the Crater in the American Civil War, frenzied white Union troops trapped in a maze of trenches and craters turned their bayonets on their African-American comrades in arms. The colored troops were on our side but they weren't enough like "us." In America today there are those who believe the president is not enough like the rest of "us" either.
That sense of ethnic and racial allegiance seems to be deeply rooted in human nature. (If we want to get rid of it, maybe we should start looking for an antidote to testosterone.) But sometimes I get the feeling that, in giving us a history of the ethnic and racial aspects of war, Ferguson may put the cart before the horse. I guess I'm more of a materialist than he is because there are times when he seems to be mixing up the independent and dependent variables, cause and effect. The demonization of the enemy, it seems to me, is more likely to follow than to precede the definition of the enemy.
You've got to know who to demonize before you can do the deed. And you define the enemy because they have something you want and you believe you can get it by conquering them. THEN you demonize them.
No one is likely to say, "Those rag head bastards have all this oil and we need it. Let's invade their country, kill everybody, and steal their oil." You can substitute "mangoes" for "oil" if that's bothersome.
That doesn't explain Hitler's treatment of the Jews in Europe very well, which seems to have been a convenient drum beat designed to stir up sufficient hatred among the Volk to get them to march together. But it seems to have had more of a bearing on the Japanese treatment of the peoples of Asia -- the Chinese, the Fillipinos, and the Maylasians. Asia had oil and natural resources like tin that the Japanese were desperate to get.
But who knows? Ferguson HAS taken material considerations into account. And, after all, who can explain all the motives behind a single homicide, let alone a War of the World.
It's odd because, judging from Ferguson's background in economic history, one would imagine him to be a materialist. Instead, the argument he seems to be pushing in this documentary is that one of the more important features of waging war is not so much economics as ethnocentrism -- a sense of "us" against "them", with "them" being infinitely inferior to "us" and worthy of deportation or extermination.
Well, there's no question that a sense of what Emile Durkheim called "mechanical solidarity" is important in warfare. During the Battle of the Crater in the American Civil War, frenzied white Union troops trapped in a maze of trenches and craters turned their bayonets on their African-American comrades in arms. The colored troops were on our side but they weren't enough like "us." In America today there are those who believe the president is not enough like the rest of "us" either.
That sense of ethnic and racial allegiance seems to be deeply rooted in human nature. (If we want to get rid of it, maybe we should start looking for an antidote to testosterone.) But sometimes I get the feeling that, in giving us a history of the ethnic and racial aspects of war, Ferguson may put the cart before the horse. I guess I'm more of a materialist than he is because there are times when he seems to be mixing up the independent and dependent variables, cause and effect. The demonization of the enemy, it seems to me, is more likely to follow than to precede the definition of the enemy.
You've got to know who to demonize before you can do the deed. And you define the enemy because they have something you want and you believe you can get it by conquering them. THEN you demonize them.
No one is likely to say, "Those rag head bastards have all this oil and we need it. Let's invade their country, kill everybody, and steal their oil." You can substitute "mangoes" for "oil" if that's bothersome.
That doesn't explain Hitler's treatment of the Jews in Europe very well, which seems to have been a convenient drum beat designed to stir up sufficient hatred among the Volk to get them to march together. But it seems to have had more of a bearing on the Japanese treatment of the peoples of Asia -- the Chinese, the Fillipinos, and the Maylasians. Asia had oil and natural resources like tin that the Japanese were desperate to get.
But who knows? Ferguson HAS taken material considerations into account. And, after all, who can explain all the motives behind a single homicide, let alone a War of the World.