Where Have All the Soldiers Gone?: The Transformation of Modern Europe
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Overview
In this lively and ambitious book, James Sheehan charts what is perhaps the most radical shift in Europe’s history: its transformation from war-torn battlefield to peaceful, prosperous society. For centuries, war was Europe’s defining narrative, affecting every aspect of political, social, and cultural life. But afterWorldWar II, Europe began to reimagine statehood, rejecting ballooning defense budgets in favor of material well-being, social stability, and economic growth.
Where Have All the Soldiers Gone? reveals how and why this happened, and what it means for America and the rest of the world.
With remarkable insight and clarity, Sheehan covers the major intellectual and political events in Europe over the past one hundred years, from the pacifist and militarist movements of the early twentieth century and two catastrophic world wars to the fall of the BerlinWall and the heated debate over Iraq.This authoritative history provides much-needed context for understanding the fractured era in which we live.
Synopsis
In this lively and ambitious book, James Sheehan charts what is perhaps the most radical shift in Europe’s history: its transformation from war-torn battlefield to peaceful, prosperous society. For centuries, war was Europe’s defining narrative, affecting every aspect of political, social, and cultural life. But afterWorldWar II, Europe began to reimagine statehood, rejecting ballooning defense budgets in favor of material well-being, social stability, and economic growth.
Where Have All the Soldiers Gone? reveals how and why this happened, and what it means for America and the rest of the world.
With remarkable insight and clarity, Sheehan covers the major intellectual and political events in Europe over the past one hundred years, from the pacifist and militarist movements of the early twentieth century and two catastrophic world wars to the fall of the BerlinWall and the heated debate over Iraq.This authoritative history provides much-needed context for understanding the fractured era in which we live.
The Washington Post - Jonathan Yardley
It's easy for us to turn up our noses at Europe's not infrequent outbursts of self-righteousness, especially from the intellectual left, but we do well to remind ourselves that Europe speaks from experience that we have not undergone and can only pray we never do. I am no pacifist, but it seems to me that Europe as Sheehan portrays it in this timely, first-rate book is headed on a sound, mature course. Europeans tend to see terrorism "as a persistent challenge to domestic order rather than an immediate international threat" and to attack it with "more effective policing, stricter laws, better surveillance" rather than with a "war." Maybe, just maybe, they know more than we do.
Editorials
Jonathan Yardley
It's easy for us to turn up our noses at Europe's not infrequent outbursts of self-righteousness, especially from the intellectual left, but we do well to remind ourselves that Europe speaks from experience that we have not undergone and can only pray we never do. I am no pacifist, but it seems to me that Europe as Sheehan portrays it in this timely, first-rate book is headed on a sound, mature course. Europeans tend to see terrorism "as a persistent challenge to domestic order rather than an immediate international threat" and to attack it with "more effective policing, stricter laws, better surveillance" rather than with a "war." Maybe, just maybe, they know more than we do.—The Washington Post
Geoffrey Wheatcroft
…[a] scintillating tour d'horizon—and de force…—The New York Times
Publishers Weekly
After two cataclysmic wars, argues Stanford historian Sheehan, Europe has been transformed from a place where the state was defined by its capacity to make war into a group of "civilian states" that have "lost all interest" in making war. Rather, they are marked by a focus on economic growth, prosperity and personal security. To explore this transformation, Sheehan examines the changes in modern warfare and in its infrastructure and the mobilization of national economies for war. Sheehan looks at the impact in the early 20th century of universal conscription, including its social consequences (such as bringing together different social classes), and its eventual decline; the peace movements marked by the 1899 and 1907 Hague conferences; the effects of the Cold War; the growth of the European Union; and the Euro-American split over the Iraq war. Sheehan's style is clear and fluid, and his work is just the right length. Perhaps his only failing is to scant Europe's "fitful and ineffective" interventions in the Balkans and more distant strife-torn countries, but this pales besides the information offered by this fine contribution to European studies. (Nov.)
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