War is so Twentieth Century.

• Author: Pal, Amitabh
• Position: Book Review

The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People By Jonathan Schell Metropolitan Books. 433 pages. $27.50.

Nuclear abolitionist and Nation contributor Jonathan Schell sets out in his latest book to remake the world--no less--while at the same time giving an abbreviated global history of modern warfare and nonviolence. Not surprisingly, the book ultimately founders on its ambitions, which is a pity, since it contains a lot of fascinating material.

"In these pages, I will try to look past history's feints and tricks," Schell announces in the book's opening pages, as he pledges to "pose afresh the issue of war and peace, of annihilation and survival."

Focusing on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Schell discusses how military conflict reached its apex, while at the same time a countervailing force--nonviolence--came into being.

"In the mountainous slag heaps of twentieth-century history, they are the flecks of gold that the twenty-first century must sift out and put to use," he states.

Schell's approach is too schematic, and his discussion about how military warfare is giving way to nonviolence can be seen as too Pollyannaish, especially given recent events.

Also marring Schell's book is his overly ambitious scope. Not satisfied merely to analyze the history of war and nonviolence, he also takes on the nature of the nation-state, the international political system, and the dynamics of the global economy.

In the first section of the book, Schell charts out a history of modern warfare. Unfortunately, he gets bogged down in an uninteresting analysis of military strategist Karl von Clausewitz and the impact of his ideas. Schell attempts to rehabilitate Clausewitz from his image as a warmonger. Clausewitz was actually in favor of subordinating war to political ends and hence limiting it, Schell argues.

He also traces the contribution of science, the industrial revolution, and imperialism to the evolution of war. These trends, he says, culminated in the total warfare of the First and the Second World Wars. Schell's linear historical approach toward warfare--which in reality has had a much more complex, messy trajectory--may elicit howls of protest from experts in the field.

Schell is on firmer ground when he discusses the atomic bomb and its role in war. This is not astonishing, since Schell has made a name for himself over the past few decades as an ardent nuclear abolitionist. He makes full use of his expertise, giving...