I would like to state a quibble: the first world war undoubtedly brought wholesale disillusionment, especially in Europe, which the author describes as a disillusionment of race that is, a disillusionment with the purported superiority of the white race because people of color observed white people killing each other under horrific conditions. I agree there was a mass disillusionment but I don't think it was on racial lines. I think the disillusionment was on class lines.
Racial disillusionment about the purported superiority of the white race came in World War II when Nehru says he saw the great British Empire being humiliated by their defeat of Singapore at the hands of the yellow race. World War I saw the Turks defeat the British at Gallipoli but there was compensating victories against the Ottoman Empire led by Lawrence and victories by regular British units in the holy land. Moreover, England prevailed ultimately in Iraq.
The author does not address the anomaly of the Germans having recovered their elan to the point where they were perhaps the most effective fighting units, man for man, in World War II. They suffered as badly as had the French and worse than the British yet their unit cohesion was remarkable even against overwhelming Soviet odds.
If the Germans lost their belief in God, it was evidently replaced by the pseudo-religion of the crazy Nazi belief system. Interestingly, at the siege of Moscow when everything was on the line for Stalin he lifted restrictions against the Orthodox Religion and brought in the clergy to fortify the troops.
Apart from these quibbles, it is a pity that study of World War I, indeed this study of history as a whole has been replaced with a left wing dialectic designed to aportion guilt rather than tell the story of the ascent of man.
