Analysis Of The Great Illusion By Norman Angell

Norman Angell, originally called Ralph Norman Angell-Lane (1873-1967) was an English economist and worker for international peace, awarded with the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1933. Angell’s most famous work is the Great Illusion (1910) . In his work he tried to establish the false notion of the idea that war could bring conquering nation economic advantages. In his book Norman Angell argues that the interdependence and development of the European economies had made wars useless and obsolete, in other words no longer in use. However he doesn’t argue that war is impossible and that it wont happen but that going to war in the modern era is stupid and irrational. In his book he argues that the idea that war might benefit the modern European States was an illusion.

In the “Great Illusion”, Angell wants to explain the motives of the arm racing in Europe in the 1910s, notably the Anglo-German. Angell quotes a journalist called Mr.Harrison who has the support of many scholars. Angell wrote that he is expressing one of the universally accepted axioms of European politics. It is that each nation pleads the need for defense, which implies that someone is likely to attack and has therefore an interest to do so. He explains this interest and the universal assumption that in order a nation to expand its population and increase its industry, or to ensure the best conditions for its people, it is necessarily to expand its territory and to exercise political force against others. He further explains that it is assumed that nations prosperity is determined by its political power and the advantage goes in the hands of the possessor of greater military force. The author challenges this doctrine. He argues that we have evolved and have passed this stage of our development. Angell wrote that it is a gross and desperately dangerous misconception. He warns that unless we dispel this optical illusion, civilization itself will be