Analysis Of The Great Illusion By Norman Angell

With the advent of modern transportation, and instantaneous communication via the internet, telephones, television, etc the world became a much smaller, and more interconnected place than it was ever in all of human history. Through these innovations the spread of people, ideas, and cultures became commonplace. This phenomenon of spreading cultures is known by the moniker of “globalization”. Proponents of globalization believe that through spreading of ideas and culture the world will benefit and be better off for it. They even go as far as to say things along the lines of “Globalization is rendering the concepts of geopolitics and Great Powers obsolete.” The very idea of this argument is, of course, quite nonsensical, and the exact opposite …show more content…
Prior to World War One Norman Angell, in his book The Great Illusion, puts forward that war between nations benefits no nation, and ultimately only weakens them, and thus war would become more unlikely when these nations realized this. Of course Angell wasn’t arguing that war was never going to happen in the world, but only that it was much more unlikely. Despite the risks, and the increased interconnectedness of Europe and the rest of the world, the European powers rather foolishly descended into the most devastating armed conflict that the world had ever seen. No amount of exchanging of ideas, trade, and people could keep the imperial powers from essentially annihilating one another for over four years. World War One was essentially geopolitics in its purest form, and the geopolitics only continued into World War Two, and the Cold War. Despite ever increasing amounts of sharing of ideas, shifting of populations, and increasingly quick methods of travel and communication the Great Powers continue to jostle for …show more content…
As stated above, globalization leads to a more interconnected world where culture and ideas are exchanged between people and nations. In an ideal world the sharing of cultures would be equal, and lead to a more diverse and harmonized world. Of course the world isn’t fair and utopian, and the balance of exchanging cultures is far from actually balanced. The United States, through a combination of movies, music, television, the internet, and other forms of media has a nearly absolute monopoly on the exportation of culture. No other country can say that it’s culture has much of an effect on the rest of the world as the United States. There is no sizable market in the United States for foreign made films, but there are countless people in other nations that show up in droves to see the newest Hollywood blockbuster. This cultural dominance the United States enjoys increases the soft power that the United States is able to bring to bare on the world