"Kim Stanley Robinson - A History Of The Twentieth Century, With Illustrations" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Kim Stanley)

delved into the causes of the Great War, he had subscribed to the usual
theory; that it had been the result of rising nationalism, diplomatic
brinksmanship, and several deceptive precedents in the previous two
decades. The Spanish-American War, the Russo-Japanese War, and the two
Balkan wars had all remained localized and non-catastrophic; and there had
been several "incidents," the Moroccan affair and the like, that had
brought the two great alliances to the brink, but not toppled them over.
So when Austria-Hungary made impossible demands to Serbia after the
assassination of Ferdinand, no one could have known that the situation
would domino into the trenches and their slaughter.
History as accident. Well, no doubt there was a lot of truth in that. But
now he found himself thinking of the crowds in the streets of all the
major cities, cheering the news of the war's outbreak; of the
disappearance of pacifism, which had seemed such a force; of, in short,
the apparently unanimous support for war among the prosperous citizens of
the European powers. Support for a war that had no real reason to be!
There was something irreducibly mysterious about that, and this time he
decided he would admit it, and discuss it. That would require a
consideration of the preceding century, the Pax Europeana; which in fact
had been a century of bloody subjugation, the high point of imperialism,
with most of the world falling to the great powers. These powers had
prospered at the expense of their colonies, who had suffered in abject
misery. Then the powers had spent their profits building weapons, and used
the weapons on each other, and destroyed themselves. There was something
weirdly just about that development, as when a mass murderer finally turns
the gun on himself. Punishment, an end to guilt, an end to pain. Could
that really explain it? While staying in Washington with his dying father,
Frank had visited the Lincoln Memorial, and there on the right hand wall
had been Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, carved in capital letters
with the commas omitted, an oddity which somehow added to the speech's
Biblical massiveness, as when it spoke of the ongoing war: "YET IF GOD
WILLS THAT IT CONTINUE UNTIL ALL THE WEALTH PILED BY THE BONDSMAN'S TWO
HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF UNREQUITED TOIL SHALL BE SUNK AND UNTIL EVERY
DROP OF BLOOD DRAWN WITH THE LASH SHALL BE PAID BY ANOTHER DRAWN WITH THE
SWORD AS WAS SAID THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO SO STILL IT MUST BE SAID 'THE
JUDGMENTS OF THE LORD ARE TRUE AND RIGHTEOUS ALTOGETHER.'"
A frightening thought, from that dark part of Lincoln that was never far
from the surface. But as a theory of the Great War's origin it still
struck him as inadequate. It was possible to believe it of the kings and
presidents, the generals and diplomats, the imperial officers around the
world; they had known what they were doing, and so might have been
impelled by unconscious guilt to mass suicide. But the common citizen at
home, ecstatic in the streets at the outbreak of general war? That seemed
more likely to be just another manifestation of the hatred of the other.
All my problems are your fault! He and Andrea had said that to each other
a lot. Everyone did.
And yet... it still seemed to him that the causes were eluding him, as
they had everyone else. Perhaps it was a simple pleasure in destruction.
What is the primal response to an edifice? Knock it down. What is the
primal response to a stranger? Attack him.