Our National Defense: The Patriotism of Peace

Maxwell, George Hebard, 1860-1946Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.2
Word count
426K words
Chapters
43

Tags

English Originals Military Military StrategySocial ObservationCivic AwarenessPatriotismIntellectual CommentaryPolicy AnalysisWorld Order

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Our National Defense: The Patriotism of Peace by George Hebard MaxwellAuthor: Maxwell, George Hebard, 1860-1946,Language: English, Class: UA: Military science: Armies: Organization, distribution, military situation, Release Date: Dec 13, 2011

Editor's review

This book is George Hubbard Maxwell's political treatise on the relationship between American national defense and pacifism. Its central argument is to combine defense building with the pursuit of peace, taking "the patriotism of peace" as its theoretical starting point. The book discusses issues such as defense organization, the military system, and social mobilization, reflecting the manner of public discussion on security issues in early twentieth-century America. Its value lies not in offering contemporary defense solutions but in presenting an argumentative approach within a historical context: how to talk about peace without giving up defensive preparation. For readers studying the history of American military thought, the history of the peace movement, or political writing, this is a usable primary source. Readers should note its historical limitations: the book's judgments about the international situation and its assumptions about the relationship between armaments and peace bear obvious marks of their era and should not be directly applied to the present. It is suitable for close reading as a historical text, not as a guide to current policy.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Read the preface and conclusion first to grasp the author's core proposition of "the patriotism of peace"
  2. While reading, mark the book's judgments about the international situation and distinguish historical context from universal arguments
  3. Read it alongside contemporary American pacifist literature to observe differences in argumentation
  4. After reading, write a short review to test whether the author's argument still holds today

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
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  21. 21
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  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43

FAQ

Which country's national defense does this book discuss? It discusses the organization of American national defense and the military system, with the author developing his argument against the background of American society. It is a work of American public political commentary from the early twentieth century and does not involve the defense of other countries.
Are the views in the book still applicable today? They should not be directly applied. The book's judgments about the international situation and its assumptions about the relationship between armaments and peace bear obvious marks of their era. It is better suited to examining its argumentative logic as a historical text than to serving as a real-world policy recommendation.
What background knowledge is needed before reading? A basic understanding of early twentieth-century American history and the general contours of international relations at the time will make the reading smoother. If you only want to grasp the structure of the argument, you can also read the preface and conclusion directly and then return to the specific discussions in the middle chapters.

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About the author

Maxwell, George Hebard, 1860-1946 Author · American · 1860–1946

George Hebard Maxwell (1860–1946) was an American lawyer and conservation advocate who argued for national reclamation of the arid lands of the West. His representative work, Our National Defense: The Patriotism of Peace, links the question of national defense with land development and resource use in peacetime, reflecting his idea of strengthening the nation through reclamation and construction. Public information is limited, so the details of his life and the full range of his work are difficult to describe. What is available shows his concern with the relationship between land, resources, and long-term national security; his writing is openly advocative, addressing the public on policy questions and representing a distinctive voice in the conservation and Western development debates of his time.