"War-Is It Possible"? Where can I Find This Book?

[ralph124c]

I recall reading that a Polish economist wrote a book by this title, just before WWI. His objective was to show the economic devastation that a modern war in Europe would cause. I have been unable to find a copy-does anyone know the exact title, and if it is obtainable?

[Schnitte]

This might not be what you’re looking for, but on the New York Times website you’ll find this article (available in PDF from the site I linked to), from a 1902 copy of the NYT Book review. It reviews a book by Polish banker and economist Ivan Bloch (credited as Jean de Bloch) on the possibility of a war between major world powers, twelve years before the beginning of WW1.

[muttrox]

Coincidentally, I am reading the Guns of August. It references Norman Angells’
The Great Illusion, which sounds similar. The thesis is that because of economic interdependence, no country would be so foolish as to wage aggresive war.

He establishes this apparent paradox, in so far as the economic problem is concerned, by showing that wealth in the economically civilized world is founded upon credit and commercial contract (these being the outgrowth of an economic interdependence due to the increasing division of labor and greatly developed communication). If credit and commercial contract are tampered with in an attempt at confiscation, the credit-dependent wealth is undermined, and its collapse involves that of the conqueror; so that if conquest is not to be self-injurious it must respect the enemy’s property, in which case it becomes economically futile. Thus the wealth of conquered territory remains in the hands of the population of such territory. When Germany annexed Alsatia, no individual German secured a single mark’s worth of Alsatian property as the spoils of war. Conquest in the modern world is a process of multiplying by x, and then obtaining the original figure by dividing by x. For a modern nation to add to its territory no more adds to the wealth of the people of such nation than it would add to the wealth of Londoners if the City of London were to annex the county of Hertford. [Norman Angell, The Great Illusion, (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1913), x-xi.]

[ralph124c]

@Schnitte

This might not be what you’re looking for, but on the New York Times website you’ll find this article (available in PDF from the site I linked to), from a 1902 copy of the NYT Book review. It reviews a book by Polish banker and economist Ivan Bloch (credited as Jean de Bloch) on the possibility of a war between major world powers, twelve years before the beginning of WW1.

Yes, this is what I’m looking for…what a pity our leaders don’t reach Bloch’s book-he fortold exactly what war would bring!