154. Fiat History with Niall Ferguson
The Bitcoin Standard Podcast
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The Pity of War
The Rothschild's correspondence makes it clear that the outbreak of the war came as a surprise even to the best informed people. What I tried to show in the pity of war was that Britain's decision for war was a highly contingent thing driven by a variety of domestic political calculations. On the 2nd of August 1914 when the British cabinet met to make their decision on whether or not to support France and therefore Russia it was by no means clear before that meeting which way it would go. If you'd asked the participants they would probably have expected not to intervene because they mostly thought Lloyd George the Chancellor of the ex-jester would be against going to war. It ended up being a good call by
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