This past week New York Times columnist and Princeton economics professor Paul Krugman wrote a column called “The Great Illusion,” about the illusion that economic rationality could prevent war. He’s discussing the ongoing conflict between Russia and Georgia and how it might signal an end to globalization as a force for peace. In the column Krugman reminds us that this has happened before:

Shortly before World War I another British author, Norman Angell, published a famous book titled “The Great Illusion,” in which he argued that war had become obsolete, that in the modern industrial era even military victors lose far more than they gain. He was right — but wars kept happening anyway.

As it happens, the only U.S. edition of Angell’s book is available from Cosimo: buy it at Amazon and watch history repeat itself.

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