My Review of Dan Edelstein's "The Revolution to Come: A History of the Idea from Thucydides to Lenin"

 To the Barricades

 

Stanford Professor Dan Edelstein has written a very academic intellectual history of the idea of political revolutions. To the ancients up to the time of the French Revolution the whole idea of revolution was disturbing. It meant a useless cycle of destruction as society moved from tyrannical to mob rule with nothing being accomplished.

 

From Professor Edelstein I learned of Polybius a Greek historian writing in the time of the Roman Republic. Polybius endorsed the idea of a “balanced constitution” that distributed executive, legislative and judicial power, sounds familiar. His writings greatly influenced the founders of the American republic. Edelstein views the American Revolution as “radical conservatism” designed to “preserve the state.” This produced the American constitution which to the frustration of the extreme right and the extreme left forces policies into the center.

 

All of this changed with the French Revolution where the idea of progress took hold. The belief in progress meant that a revolution could bring about a glorious future and instead of having a balanced constitution it excused dictatorship in the hope that it would bring about a better world to come. To Edelstein, dictatorship was not an exception, but rather a feature of modern revolutions. Starting with Napoleon in 1799, to the Latin American caudillos of the early 1800’s, to Lenin, Mao, and Khomeini.

 

This is a hard book for the lay reader, but for those interested in the idea of revolution it is well worth slogging through.

My Review of Williamson Murray's "The Dark Path: War and the Rise of the West"

 War Through the Ages

The late Williamson Murray, a military historian at Ohio State, has written a tour de force history of war from the 1500’s to the present. He argues convincingly that the intense competition for the mastery of Europe led to advances in military technology and the infrastructure of war making were responsible for European success in mastering the globe.  His other thesis is that wars are not won by decisive battles, but rather by brute numbers, organization, economics, finance, and logistics. 

For example, Napoleon’s victory at Jena, which so impressed Hegel and Ludendorff’s victory at Tannenberg did not determine the outcome of the Napoleonic Wars and World War I, respectively. Napoleon lost because the coalition against him was far better organized and financed and had numbers on their side. Similarly, Germany and its allies lost world War I because with America’s entry into the war they were outnumbered and out financed. However, “time and chance happen to all” or in Clausewitz’s word “friction” and at times friction can overcome a lack of resources. For example, Ukraine is still in the fight, but it appears that heroic country was just sold-out by Trump.

Williamson discusses at length the various revolutions in military affairs. He starts with gun powder rendering castle walls obsolete and he goes on to discuss innovations in sailing that happened 100 years later that enhanced naval power. The most important revolution was the merger of the French Revolution with its levee en masse with the industrial revolution which made war total by making the civilian population enmeshed in warfighting. The flowering of that would occur in the American Civil War where the North was far better organized with far better logistics to overcome the South. The war lasted as long as it did because of poor generalship on the part of the North and better generalship on the part of the South.

If there is a hero in the book, it is Otto von Bismarck, whose strategic vision unified Germany with three wars. He had strategic focus and fully understood Clausewitz’s dictum, “that war is the extension of politics by more violent means.” Thus, the lack of strategic vision is road to ruin in wartime. For example, Bismarck understood that after victory against Austria he chose not seize any territory and that ultimately made Austria an ally.

For recent history Murray relies on the work of Andrew Marshall, the longtime head of the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment. ( A biography on Marshall was reviewed here: https://shulmaven.blogspot.com/2015/04/my-amazon-review-of-andrew-krepinevichs.html ) In that biography I noted, “As the Cold War was winding down in the mid-1980s he focused his attention on the rise of China and was quick to point out how the revolution in military affairs (precision weapons, computerized command and control and information warfare) in the 1990s would significantly change the nature of future battlefields.” Indeed, this is how Murray viewed Marshall’s work. Further Murray noted that Marshall was among the first to see the Soviets lacked the economic strength and the scientific bench to keep up with the U.S. in 1980’s, which highlighted the fact that war involves far more than kinetic battlefields.

Although “The Dark Path” is a long book, it offers a kaleidoscopic view of the history of war over the past 500 years. It is not for the casual reader, but for those interested in understanding how our world came into being, it is well worth the effort.

My Amazon Review of Richard J. Evans' "The Pursuit of Power: Europe, 1815-1914"

The European Century

The distinguished Oxford Historian Richard Evans has given us a kaleidoscopic view of European civilization during the century it came to dominate the globe. A reader will learn a lot by going through this very long book (848 pages in the print edition without footnotes or endnotes.) In my opinion too long for the average lay reader. Evans offers us a bottom-up socio-political history where the focus is more on the average citizen and culture than the political elite.

In essence Evans discusses how Europe came to terms with the political earthquakes brought about by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars and the industrial revolution. In 1815 the so called Concert of Europe is brought into being by Metternich as a conservative reaction to the French Revolution. That framework largely keeps the peace until 1848.  Nevertheless the ideas of the French Revolution bubble up and gradually work to democratize European society as the franchise is extended to more and more people. He highlights the conflict between the liberal reformers in the bourgeoisie and their more democratic counterparts whose visions extend to feminism and socialism.

Along the way nationalism becomes the most powerful force in Europe as Italy and Germany unify and the minorities within the decaying Austrian and Ottoman Empires revolt. It is those revolts that light the match that starts World War I.

Nationalism also becomes the motivating force in the establishment of European colonial empires in Asia and Africa. Territory abroad yielded political prestige home. The power of nationalism proves itself in 1914 when the previously anti-war socialist parties all vote for war credits in their respective nations.

All told The Pursuit of Power is well worth the read, but it will take a patient lay reader to get through it all.

The full Amazon URL appears at: https://www.amazon.com/review/R1QBMCP030IDI0/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv