Human Nature, War and Society The Idea of Nationalism The Decline of Liberalism as an Ideology German Youth

Abstract

DR. J. COHEN'S stimulating pamphlet, “Human Nature, War and Society”, does not claim to present more than a provisional hypothesis of the causes of war, and is in fact concerned rather with negative than with positive conclusions. We have long been familiar with the easy generalizations that evade the whole issue by finding the causes of war variously in human nature, armaments, biological necessity, animal aggressiveness or primitive savagery, and Dr. Cohen adduces ample evidence to dispose of these shirkings of the problem. “Human nature,” he says, “is much maligned. It is unjustly held responsible for war and many other troubles which are really due to neglect or ignorance”, and he makes a strong plea for 'scientific inquiry' to dispel ignorance, and by revealing the causes of war to render easier its control. But he has little that is constructive to offer. His thesis that war is the mark of civilized rather than of primitive societies is sound enough, but does not get us far, and he accepts rather too readily the common view that nationalism is a cause of war; it can equally be claimed to be a result of it. The remedy for war he finds in education and a 'world order' built in its earlier stages on such functional organisations as U.N.R.R.A. and F.A.O. (both of which, in spite of what he says on p. 176, are surely 'inter-national' rather than 'supranational'). The choice of U.N.R.R.A. as an example was, perhaps, not altogether a happy one in view of recent events, and throughout his recommendations Dr. Cohen is impatient of current difficulties. There is more in Lord Beveridge's proposals, which he criticizes on p. 163, than he is prepared to recognize, at least at the present stage of world development. Nevertheless, Dr. Cohen has done useful work in sweeping away common fallacies and in directing attention to the need for that 'scientific' investigation of the causes of war that is the task of the historian. Scarcely less valuable, perhaps, would be a study of the wars that were prevented-an aspect of the subject that seems to have been overlooked.

Human Nature, War and Society

By Dr. John Cohen. (Thinker's Library, No. 112.) Pp. x + 193. (London: Watts and Co., Ltd., 1946.) 2s. 6d. net.

The Idea of Nationalism

A Study in its Origins and Background. By Prof. Hans Kohn. Pp. xiii + 735. (New York : The Macmillan Company, 1946.) 36s. net.

The Decline of Liberalism as an Ideology

With Particular Reference to German Politico-Legal Thought. By John H. Hallowell. (International Library of Sociology and Social Reconstruction.) Pp. xiii + 141. (London : Kegan Paul and Co., Ltd., 1946.) 12s. 6d. net.

German Youth

Bond or Free. By Prof. Howard Becker. (International Library of Sociology and Social Reconstruction.) Pp. xiii+286. (London: Kegan Paul and Co., Ltd., 1946.) 18s. net.