A Century On, There Are Uncomfortable Parallels With The Era That Led To The First World War

AS NEW YEAR approached a century ago, most people in the West looked forward to 1914 with optimism. The hundred years since the Battle of Waterloo had not been entirely free of disaster--there had been a horrific civil war in America, some regional scraps in Asia, the Franco-Prussian war and the occasional colonial calamity. But continental peace had prevailed. Globalisation and new technology--the telephone, the steamship, the train--had knitted the world together. John Maynard Keynes has a won...