This review will discuss Arthur Stein's book, The Nation at War. The discussion will include a brief description of the book and an evaluation of the book's strengths and weaknesses, particularly with regards to Stein's main theses. The discussion of the book will also include evaluations by other reviewers.
First published in 1978, The Nation at War is supposed to evaluate the domestic effects of war upon a participant. Stein's main hypotheses are: 1) while a perceived threat to the nation will increase the overall group cohesion of a nation's population, war on the whole reduces this cohesion, with the level of decrease dependent upon the level of mobilization (pp. 11-14) ; 2) concentration and centralization of government and production increases as mobilization exceeds a threshold defined by the society's prewar production capacity (p. 20); and 3) inequality in society decreases as mobilization requires increased participation by members of society in production and as the government spends more on social services (p. 26). Stein evaluates these three hypotheses by examining statistical evidence concerning the United States during its four major wars during the Twentieth Century: World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.
Stein actually divides his first hypothesis into two parts. In the first part, he says domestic cohesion actually increases, at least initially, when the population believes that the war constitutes an external threat to the survival of the nation and that cooperative effort will defeat this threat (1978, p. 11) . Of all the wars in the Twentieth Century, only during the Second World
War did Americans feel that the survival of their country was at stake. Thus, domestic cohesion in the United States actually rose immediately following the attack on Pearl Harbor and was sustained through most of the war (pp. 29-32). In the other wars, however, Americans did not fear for the survival of their c...