Norman Angell

Sir Ralph Norman Angell (26 December 1872 – 7 October 1967) was a lecturer, journalist, author and Member of Parliament for the Labour Party. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to promote peace, particularly through writings that argued that modern economic interdependence made war irrational and self-defeating.

Angell was one of the principal founders of the Union of Democratic Control. He served on the Council of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, was an executive for the World Committee against War and Fascism, a member of the executive committee of the League of Nations Union, and the president of the Abyssinia Association. He was knighted in 1931 and awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1933.

Angell is most remembered for his 1910 book The Great Illusion, the thesis of which is that the economic integration of the European countries had grown to such a degree that war between them would be entirely futile, making militarism obsolete. Angell was frequently misunderstood at the time, and afterward, as claiming that a general European war was impossible. Because of this widespread misunderstanding, the advent of World War I exposed Angell to scholarly and popular derision.