Total war

Abstract

This article reviews the five volume series, published by Cambridge University Press, on the history of total war from the American Civil War and Wars of German Unification to World War II. The discussion focuses on two questions: how to define total war; and is total war a useful conceptual tool for understanding warfare during this period? Although the editors were unable to come up with a definition of total war, they did identify elements or tendencies that together contributed to the growing totalization of war during the nineteenth and especially twentieth centuries. Regarding the second question, the editors suggest that total war is best thought of as an ideal type, one to which reality can approach but never reach. If this use of total war facilitates comparison between wars (and different aspects of one war) by providing a common standard, it leaves open the question of how to undertake such a comparison.