One would not expect the writing of history, especially leftist history, to lack pragmatism. Gabriel Kolko, however, takes this axiom to the extreme. In his book, Century of War: Politics, Conflicts, and Society Since 1914, Kolko goes beyond simple detail and factual information and delves into the marathon task of deconstructing the events and circumstances of almost all major military conflicts the world has seen since 1914. The book is encyclopedic in length and contains an overwhelming amount of minutia, as one would expect from an historian such as Kolko…an historian with over ten major works to his name. Yet this book has it failings. Without knowing much about the author one finds it surprising when on about page 145 he suddenly begins describing the origins of "the left" in Europe around the time of World War I. At this time, the reader begins to understand Kolko’s true point in writing the book, as well as his overriding views as a leftist historian. Kolko’s writing style also leaves something to be desired. Finally, the author’s logic fails him at several crucial points in the book.

Before examining the main points and ideas of Century of War, I must comment upon the writing style used by the author in this work. The single best word that one can use to describe the diction and writing style of this book is…dense. The author’s sentence structure throughout the book remains confusing and lengthy. This makes the work more cumbersome and somewhat less effective had it been written more clearly. In addition to style, the title of the book itself is misleading. Century of War contains scant description of battles, tactics, or military events that one would expect from a book about war. Instead, Kolko focuses on the working classes and their society during major wars. This focus partially falls under the rubric of Kolko’s subtitle of Politics, Conflicts, and Society Since 1914. He does not speak of society as a whole or politics per se, only how lower class society functions and how politics affected this class. The term society or conflict is all encompassing; Kolko chooses to examine mainly one society and how politics and conflict affected this society. The title of the book is a misnomer, and has been said, only on about page 150 does the reader begin to figure out the author’s overall meaning. The book does not describe war; rather it details how war created the social and economic situations for socialism, leftism, and communism to flourish.

Regardless of the book’s faults, it remains difficult to criticize Kolko on his coverage of the events of World War I, World War II, the Chinese Revolution, Vietnam, and United State’s affairs in the Third World. Using mainly secondary sources, Kolko seeks to create a synthesis of the corpus of writing surrounding this century’s major conflicts. His overall goal revolves around pooling a great deal of resources in order to prove that war itself helped to create the emerging social dynamics of leftism and communism.

When describing WWI, Kolko first deals with societal pressures that force a relatively feudal peasantry in Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, and Russia from a simple existence into one of radicalism. In short, Kolko relates in great detail and insight how the need for an expanding war machine in Europe pulled a majority of peasants from the countryside into the cities, factories, and armies of the warring nations and almost effectively ended these peasants way of life. Europe had, for centuries, an overriding peasant ideal, and once this ideal was shattered by war peasants had nowhere to turn. Frustrated, abused, and tired, these peasants, now factory workers and soldiers, turned to the left as a source of inspiration. Kolko demands that they had no other ideology to turn to; they had to rebel in some form, and certain factors induced them to rebel on the side of the left. These factors include the spreading of the Bolsheviks in Russia and the eventual revolution in this country (a factor that affected all of Europe), the emergence and popularity of socialist parties in Germany, France, and Italy that fomented worker’s strikes and absenteeism, the desertion of soldiers from military fronts, and the return of these soldiers to ruined cities and towns after the war. Kolko’s argument, in essence, revolves around the fact that European working class society was fundamentally transformed and in no way could return to its previous condition. Only one way existed for European society to travel, to the left. The author, however, might have checked this theory by examining other social theories at the time. Was turning to the left the only avenue left to Europe’s masses? Did any choose to look at other ways of thinking, perhaps Wilson’s "14 points" or some other idea for change? The author mentions no other alternatives.

The description of the events that lead to the spreading of communist factions in Europe during WWII finds Kolko at his best. He convincingly describes Germany’s growth and use of conquered territories as virus-like. Kolko proposes that, like a virus, Germany infiltrated many countries and while leaving their basic societies intact, systematically took control of these country’s industries and raw materials to feed the German war machine. In essence, Germany used conquered territories to replicate itself. This, of course, left elites and political leaders mainly in place (except Poland) and allowed Germany to exploit the lower classes. Food production came to a halt as workers found themselves pulled from farmlands to work in factories and mines. Food output waned, and the peasants of all of Europe, including Germany, began to suffer. Kolko describes how France, Belgium, and the Netherlands collaborated in these efforts to willingly produce for the Nazis. As the war lagged on and the Nazis began to suffer defeats, resistance forces began to develop throughout Europe. As a consequence, Nazi repression increased. As repression worsened, resistance focused more and more on communal activism. Communist parties gained in popularity in Italy, France, Greece and the rest of Europe…even in Germany.

Kolko, at this point, while maintaining a convincing stance and adequately proving his point, oversteps his bounds. He attempts to prove how communist parties worked together with Soviet forces to influence the whole of Europe. Kolko goes into detail to describe these parties’ successes and large membership bases, exaggerating their overall influence. In hindsight, we know that the communist parties in France, Greece, and Italy waned shortly after the war’s end and remain only token political parties in these countries today (not to mention what happened to the USSR). By detailing their successes so adamantly, Kolko hints at a communist explosion throughout Europe, an explosion that was contained by conservative forces long before it essentially got off the ground.

The chapter on the Chinese Revolution marks a turning point in the book as Kolko begins to describe the basic successes of communist forces in China. More than any other point in the book, the author thoroughly describes the events that led to a communist victory in China. The suffering of peasant classes at the hands of an invading Japanese army and an "impotent political leadership" at home could only be repudiated by an expanding communist party and revolution.(p.313) Kolko asserts that the Chinese people had no other option except to embrace the left. The author only makes one fundamental flaw in judgement in this chapter. On page 315 Kolko asserts that "China suffered relatively no more than a number of European nations and less than Poland, the Soviet Union, and others." Kolko contradicts himself. The suffering described in Europe pales in comparison to the suffering in China. By his own admission, China suffered just as much as Poland and more so than most other European nations…hence the success of communist forces in this country.

Kolko again distinguishes himself with the next few chapters on revolution and war in Vietnam and his study of US diplomacy in the Third World. Indeed, this is an area of specialization for the author and he has written several books on both subjects. Kolko adequately proves the reasons for Vietnam’s attempt at revolution in the 1940s and their overall use of, but lack of control by, the Soviet Union. He also delves into United State’s involvement with Greece, Korea, and Latin America in the final section of the book. The last chapter, however, fails in several regards. First of all, it is far too short. Where Kolko crammed detail after detail into previous chapters, chapter fifteen seems suddenly barren. Also, the author makes a two-page attempt to deal with Latin America and then returns to his discussion of US involvement in Vietnam. Perhaps his specialization in Vietnam allowed him to say more about this subject, but Latin America finds itself almost ignored by the author.

Century of War remains one of those books that the reader really has to work with. One must truly read every word, sometimes more than once, before the author’s point becomes apparent. Honestly, (going back to previous comments about the author’s writing style) once the reader gets into the book and becomes familiar with the author’s style, the reading begins to become pleasurable. In the end, the reader leaves with valuable information and a knowledge of the ways in which the left developed throughout the world that cannot be found in an everyday text on the subject of war in the twentieth century.