Campaign for the American Reader: Pg. 69: "The First Total War"

David A. Bell is Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University and a contributing editor for The New Republic.

His new book is The First Total War: Napoleon's Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It. I asked him to apply the "page 69 test" to it; here is what he reported:

The First Total War is a book about the transformation of warfare in Europe during the lifetime of Napoleon Bonaparte (the mid-eighteenth century to the early nineteenth), and the consequences of this transformation for the present day. It first examines cultural changes in the way war was conceived, as the thinkers of the Enlightenment challenged aristocratic societies that had taken war for granted. It then shows how, as a perverse consequence of these challenges, the wars that broke out during the French Revolution turned far bloodier and more destructive than their immediate predecessors, culminating in the triumphs and catastrophes of Napoleon Bonaparte's empire. For this reason, I argue, the conflicts of 1792-1815 collectively deserve the title of "the first total war." I suggest that ever since, visions of total war and perpetual peace have been tightly linked to one another, and that we have great trouble conceiving of war in a non-apocalyptic way.

Page 69 of the book comes in Chapter II, which deals with the Enlightenment critiques. The page itself is devoted to the French thinker Baron d'Holbach, whom I present as emblematic of Enlightenment thought on war. I discuss the way d'Holbach (unlike earlier, Christian thinkers) saw mankind as naturally peaceful, only driven to war by ill-intentioned rulers. I then move on to the way he rubbished traditional aristocratic notions of military honor. I concede that he was hardly the first to do so, and quote Shakespeare's Falstaff on the subject: "What is that honor? Air… Who hath it? He that died o'Wednesday." But I add the following:

"But d'Holbach developed the critique with unprecedented thoroughness and psychological insight. 'What does this honor consist of' he asked […] 'Of ridiculous vanity, of imaginary advantages, titles and sounds' […] d'Holbach dripped scorn on 'the commanders who, by their luxury, liberality and sumptuous meals […] drench a mob of do-nothing servants in abundance while the exhausted foot soldier goes wanting.' What did such monstrous extravagance signify if not a pathetic attempt to compensate for the aristocrat's personal inadequacy? Honor, in short, had degenerated into a pathology: 'the fear of being despised, because one knows that one is, in truth, despicable.'"

Many thanks to David for the input.

Click here to read an excerpt from the book, and here to see page 69.

Among the advance praise for The First Total War:

“A page turner.... Everyone who hates wars ... should read these pages.”
--Patrice Higonnet, Harvard University

"Thoughtful and original.... Bell has mapped what is a virtually new field of inquiry: the culture of war."
--Steven L. Kaplan, Goldwin Smith Professor of European History, Cornell University

“A mesmerizing account that illuminates not just the Napoleonic wars but all of modern history… it reads like a novel."
--Lynn Hunt, Eugen Weber Professor of Modern European History, UCLA

"A terrific book, fresh, original and compelling. . . a brilliant account of a fundamental historical transformation.”
--Keith Michael Baker, Stanford University

"The First Total War is a fascinating and brilliant work of history. It offers a giant insight ... into the strange and scary dialectic of innocence and violence, the dream of total peace and the outbreak of total war."
-- Paul Berman, author of Terror and Liberalism