Review: The First Total War by David A. Bell

Today, in January Magazine’s non-fiction section, contributing editor Aaron Blanton reviews The First Total War by David A. Bell. Says Blanton:

In The First Total War, Bell suggests that though in the self-involved current age, we tend to think about the century just past as the one that caused all the trouble, it was the Napoleonic era that laid the groundwork for war as we would all come to know it. Or, as Bell himself says in the introduction:

Here, then, is the essential argument of The First Total War. The intellectual transformations of the Enlightenment, followed by the political fermentation of 1789-92, produced new understandings of war that made possible cataclysmic intensification of the fighting over the next twenty-three years. Ever since, the same developments have shaped the way Western societies have seen and engaged in military conflict.

And though that sounds as though it may a dry book make -- and if we consider the fact that the author is, after all, a scholar -- please keep in mind that the introduction intends to set things up only. The book itself… well, it often sings.

The full review is here.