The Great War for Peace

Mulligan (The Origins of the First World War), a faculty member of the Center for War Studies at University College, Dublin, makes a controversial contribution to the study of the Great War, arguing that that the concept of peace belongs at "the centre" of historical views of the war. It is certainly a counter-intuitive position, and he believes that WWI led to peace being "imagined and constructed in new ways that had an enduring legacy in twentieth-century international relations." Despite his credentials, not all readers will be convinced%E2%80%94the distinction between a genuine desire for peace and the use of the ideal as a rhetorical tool is exemplified in Hitler's "resorting to the essential vocabulary of peace in his speeches." And it seems obvious that people believed that peace was viewed as "a repository of demands and expectations for a better future" well before WWI, despite Mulligan's suggestion to the contrary. He suitably rebuts those who portray Europe pre-1914 as placid, linking the Italo-Ottoman War and the 1912 and 1913 Balkan Wars to the carnage that followed. Nevertheless, Mulligan's ultimate conclusion%E2%80%94that in the 100 years since 1914, peace has not only survived but "flourished"%E2%80%94will strike some as a rose-colored perspective. (May)