This is an adult book about a British Pacifist that mainly lectured about his book The Great Illusion.( I haven't read the Illusion---but the implications I gathered were that there will never be peace, the stronger always pick on the weeker, there will always be war.) He calmed he was an american because he homesteaded 160 acres in Bakersfield Calif. He was a cowboy and taught how to survive by a cowboy named Covert. He remained in the U.S. for only a short time. He went back to Europe where he had many jobs with the press (he ran a newpape in France)and had influence both positive and negative with anyone of importance in England. It seems his geatest support from the USA was Nicolas Muray Butler. He thought his Knighthood was a farce but he used it to influence others. He won the Nobel Peace Prize and was very instrumental in The League Of Nations that seemed to backfire and help cause the second world war: because, of the abuses of France againts the Germans. Secondly England stood by while Germany created it's army,weapons and advance on Austria. Sir Angell was very frustrated with the leadeship of The League of Nation and the Priminister-Chamberland was a cluts, but never gave up. It was very inlightening, but a tuff read. Albert Marrin does not talk down but I would say it is written on the 16th grade level. If your into history or international law it should me a must read.

A must read for modern pundits -- if you update the language slightly it would read exactly as if it were written by a modern idealist political pundit.

The premise is that world economies, particularly on continental Europe, are so interdependent, and the disruption of these economic ties would be so devastating to all concerned, that it is inconceivable that there will ever be another major war on the European continent. The author was the toast of the European cocktail circuit, and his treatise was lauded by all. It was written in 1910 and originally published in 1913. For all those pushing the same ideas today, wake up and smell the gunpowder....

The above review by "Lee T" is inaccurate and poorly supported.

First, the premise of The Great Illusion is not that war is "inconceivable," but that it is an "economic impossibility for one nation to seize or destroy the wealth, or for one nation to enrich itself by subjugating another". So yes, war is conceivable, it's simply ill-advised.

If you've read any of Norman's other works, you would know that the Fruits of Victory (1921 shows how the results of World War I DID bore out the propositions first explained in The Great Illusion.

Accordingly, if you read and truly understand this seminal piece of work, you will most certainly not agree with the asinine notion that people must "wake up and smell the gunpowder."