Dynamic of Destruction: Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War. Alan Kramer. Oxford University Press

Contemporary Review, Summer, 2008

Dynamic of Destruction: Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War. Alan Kramer. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]18.99. xi 434 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-280342-9. This interesting study begins with one of the most famous German atrocities in the Great War, the burning of Louvain University's famous library.

With the Germanic concept of Kulturkampf in mind the author's concern is not to write a history of German atrocities but to take a farranging view across the period 1914-1945. He seeks to analyse what he calls a 'dynamic of destruction', the cultural aspect of the war: to defeat was not enough. One had to destroy before one could impose what had become a 'national culture'. The cultural barbarism and large military casualities of the First World War laid the ground for the 'total war' of 1939-45 even though they did not make it inevitable. He argues there was a link between cultural destruction and mass killing of soldiers and civilians. While one may question some aspects of this connexion. Prof. Kramer's arguments and research mean this study must be taken seriously and referred to in succeeding studies of the Great War and of war in general. (T.B.)