Summary
The current chapter aims at discussing the essence and reasons of World Wars. The lives of millions of people had to be changed when a world war began. Such interruptions influenced people considerably, and Hamilton and Herwig tried to understand what led to wars and what people had to know about wars.
The authors introduce a world war as “one involving five or more major powers and having military operations on two or more continents” (Hamilton and Herwig 2). They mention that there were eight world wars on the European continent with other countries from Asia and Africa and the Americans being involved. Each war had its reasons and outcomes.
The issues of militarism, social Darwinism, imperialism, and nationalism and the inabilities to come to the same public opinion are identified as the main causal factors of wars. Still, regardless the presence of various reasons of World War I, as well as total wars, it is possible to provide a general conclusion for the majority of wars that is the initiations of the rulers to be dominant in the world and the necessity of others to respond.
The authors use the example of the World War I in order to describe and explain the causes that make people fight and prove their ideas by means of weapons. That war, like many other wars, could be explained by a poorly organized decision-making process. The leaders of the countries made their decisions to involve their nations in wars. No more than ten people made millions of people fight against each other due to the existing authoritarian regimes. People were ready to die for their countries in case their leaders wanted that happen.
Opinion
In my opinion, the chapter under consideration is a good choice for those, who want to investigate the peculiarities of total war, and the World War I in particular. The authors do not try to introduce dry facts and convince the reader using statistics or personal attitudes only. From the very beginning, they want to ask as many questions as possible in order to involve readers in thinking activities and analyzing processes. I think that the techniques offered by Hamilton and Herwig are winning because of two main reasons. First, the context of the source is not homogeneous.
The text consists of several introductory paragraphs to inform why the authors start their project, a number of questions so that the readers understand why they need this source of information, historical overviews to remember what happened during different wars, and the analytical part to underline the core of the chapter, the causes of wars. Second, the possibilities to combine their personal opinions with the already approved theory and facts serve as powerful evidence that the authors know what they are writing about.
They do not introduce some new aspects of wars. They do not blame one group of people in order to support another. They underline that the main mistake was connected with the inability to make decisions. Not only leaders made such mistake. Military people failed to understand the power of outcomes of their decisions, and ordinary citizens could not succeed in choosing appropriate leaders, who could understand the level of responsibility they had to deal with.
In general, this chapter helps to realize that the causes of war could vary. The truth remains to be the same: people have a tendency to make mistakes. A war is a result of a poorly made decision. The only difference between an ordinary poorly made decision and the decision that leads to war is the price, and wars are always “costly ventures” (Hamilton and Herwig 2).
Work Cited
Hamilton, Richard, F. and Holger H. Herwig. “World Wars: Definition and Causes.” The Origins of World War I. Eds. Richard F. Hamilton and Holger H. Herwig. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 1-44. Print.