Three critical voices of the era are relevant again, and their contributions to the problems of their day are worth reconsidering in ours.
Norman Angell, a British writer, lecturer and advocate, examined the relations between the changes in technology and international economics to changes in grand strategy. Beginning with his 1909 Europe's Optical Illusion (later, The Great Illusion), he exhorted for decades about the futility of war; he was recognized for his work with the Nobel Peace prize in 1933.
Alfred T. Mahan was an American naval officer, but his importance was as an historian and geo-strategist. Writing mostly from 1890-1910, he explored the impact of the radical technological changes of his era on the military, economy, and politics. He contributed to a re-evaluation of the interests and opportunities of war and peace for European and American allies, and their adversaries.
William M. Shuster found himself in the heart of Middle Eastern politics, an American diplomat serving as treasurer-general of Persia in 1911. As powers within Persia struggled over its new, "democratic" constitution, Russian and British imperialism amounted to what Shuster called (in his memoir's title) The Strangling of Persia (1912).
The paper will examine and integrate the array of lessons, or at least lenses, these three offer for understanding Europe's regional and global security, economic, and political challenges today.
