The context

In the generation that preceded the First World War, new elements intruded into the debate on the biology of war, stemming from such factors as the imperial rivalry of the great powers, a crisis of identity in western culture, and revolutionary advances in science, including biology. It was a time when strident declamations of western superiority and faith in inevitable progress were combined with widespread evidence of disenchantment and doubt. The optimistic human self-image associated with rationalism and liberal ideas came under attack from cruder, more reductionist, more violent and belittling views of humankind. The genetics revolution, and the hereditarian doctrines that came out of it, generated some extreme brands of biological determinism that had violent and authoritarian consequences. Yet, amidst the despair and alienation that marked western culture before 1914 – and despite the militarist assessment of war as a biological necessity – an anti-war tradition of biological thought became entrenched in the pre-war era. This peace paradigm was particularly strong in the Anglo-American world, feeding off the ‘new biology’ as well as more conventional respect for Darwin's ecological and co-operationist ideas.

The changing climate of world affairs affected all schools of thought. It was an age of rampant imperialism, a struggle for mastery among the European powers, arms races, cut-throat economic competition, a world recession (the so-called ‘Great Depression’ of the 1870s to the 1890s), bewildering social change and class unrest.