This book is one of the most significant ever written by Denson. It contains essays that have been turned into major movies and documentaries, and influenced politics in ways no one could have expected. The thesis in brief: the warfare state is as great or greater threat to liberty than the welfare state. Lovers of freedom need to focus their energies in favor of peace and against war.
Further, there can be no reconciling freedom and empire.
The 2nd edition is expanded to include an additional essay on World War I by Ralph Raico and another by David Gordon on war propaganda. Other contributors include Murray N. Rothbard and Robert Higgs.
“An original and scholarly appraisal of America’s wars and their consequences, The Costs of War is easily one of the most important books to emerge from American conservatives in a generation....” —Thomas Woods, Modern Age
“John Denson’s The Costs of War offers a devastating critique of Washington’s interventionist tendencies. The book, a series of conference papers, shows how, for instance, the Civil War sparked the federal government’s (still ongoing) centralization of power and how World War I reflected the triumph of collectivism.” —Doug Bandow, World
“This book is the most convincing attack on the warmongering state to appear since the end of the Second World War.” —Gerard Radnitsky, Neuezuericher Zeitung.
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John V. Denson is Distinguished Scholar in History and Law at the Mises Institute. He is a practicing attorney in Alabama and the editor of two books, The Costs of War and Reassessing the Presidency, and the author of A Century of War: Lincoln, Wilson and Roosevelt.
Never forget the Christmas truce of World War I, when troops refused to be pawns of empire for one blessed day.
