On Wednesday 3 October 2007, Sir Michael Howard (President Emeritus, IISS) will be speaking on his book Liberation or Catastrophe? Drinks will be served from 5.30pm, followed by a dicussion and Q&A session from 6-7pm.
After a brief discussion about the meaning of 'modern' history, Michael Howard presents a fascinating analysis of the history of the 20th Century - laying much emphasis on the USA, where the author has spent much time as a Professor at Yale. It was Michael Howard who brought the study of military history into the mainstream of historical research and his readers will expect this as an emphasis in his analysis. They will expect less about suffragettes, human rights and the role of women. Howard’s concern is substantially with the role of the military in the developing story of the twentieth century. At the beginning of the twentieth century, nostalgia for a lost past seems to have permeated the whole of European culture. This was the time of bucolic idylls of English musicians and poets of the Edwardian age with revivals of folk music and yearning for blue remembered hills. But thirteen million men died in the First World War and an entire world died with them. By then only rational, bureaucratic, effectively modernised states could fight such wars, with weapons designed to inflict maximum destruction. The tone for a new century was set. For if the old order died with the First World War, something else far more powerful and sinister was born, the 'rough beast' of Yeats' apocalyptic poem, that was to dominate Europe for the rest of the century. In spite of the peace of 1945, it remains alive and flourishing in many parts of the world. Such in part is the thesis of this powerfully argued book but its sub themes are skilfully interwoven and propounded.
Professor Sir Michael Howard was Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History, and then at Oxford was the Regius Chair of Modern History. Among his most celebrated books are The Franco-Prussian War, War in European History, The Invention of Peace and his autobiography, Captain Professor.
Copies of this book will be available to buy at the launch at a special discounted rate. Cash purchases only.
This meeting will be held on the 5th Floor at Arundel House, 13-15 Arundel Street, Temple Place, London WC2R 3DX.
If you would like to attend, please RSVP Kathleen James on E-mail:
james@iiss.org or Tel: 020 7395 9109
