The purpose of this research is to examine Seyom Brown's The Causes and Prevention of War with reference to David Hackett Fischer's Historians' Fallacies. The plan of the research will be to set forth the main elements of Brown's theory of the origins of war, and then to discuss the theory with a view toward dis cerning whether and to what extent it is weakened by reason of falling into traps of faulty reasoning as articulated by Fischer.
The objective of Brown's book may be inferred from its title, although as Brown himself suggests, the approach that he takes to explaining the reasons wars happen might be considered unusual. That is, The Causes and Prevention of War is not merely an exercise in analysis of political history or political econ omy, although the scope of study is limited to international, nation-fighting-nation war. The book is an interdisciplinary study, which Brown takes to mean one that exploits the methods and insights of the full range of the social sciences, as well as biology and physics, in the service, first, of coming up with in sights into how wars begin and second, of forecasting possible lines of policy development meant to "reduce the role of violence in world politics." The two parts of the book correspond to these goals of explaining causes and then prevention of interna tional conflict. In other words, The Causes and Prevention of War is descriptive and analytical of the causes of war and either suggestive or prescriptive of ways in which war might be avoided.
In explaining the causes of war, Brown begins with discussion of the role of overt violence at the individual human level and then proceeds more or less by degrees, chapter by chapter, to describing the origins of violence fostered at the highest and most structured institutional level. A discussion of individuals rotates into a discussion of groups, thence to group dynamics, and thence to structural relationships of groups and institution...