IN the autumn of 1914, when the scientific study of the effects of
war upon modern life passed suddenly from theory to history, the
Division of Economics and History of the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace proposed to adjust the program of its re-
searches to the new and altered problems which the War presented.
The existing program, which had been prepared as the result of a
conference of economists held at Berne in 1911, and which dealt
with the facts then at hand, had just begun to show the quality of
its contributions; but for many reasons it could no longer be fol-
lowed out. A plan was therefore drawn up at the request of the
Director of the Division, in which it was proposed, by means of an
historical survey, to attempt to measure the economic cost of the
War and the displacement which it was causing in the processes of
civilization. Such an "Economic and Social History of the World
War," it was felt, if undertaken by men of judicial temper and ade-
quate training, might ultimately, by reason of its scientific obliga-
tions to truth, furnish data for the forming of sound public opinion,
and thus contribute fundamentally toward the aims of an institution
dedicated to the cause of international peace.

The need for such an analysis, conceived and executed in the
spirit of historical research, was increasingly obvious as the War
developed, releasing complex forces of national life not only for the
vast process of destruction, but also for the stimulation of new
capacities for production. This new economic activity, which under
normal conditions of peace might have been a gain to society, and
the surprising capacity exhibited by the belligerent nations for
enduring long and increasing loss -- often while presenting the out-
ward semblance of new prosperity -- made necessary a reconsidera-
tion of the whole field of war economics. A double obligation was
therefore placed upon the Division of Economics and History. It
was obliged to concentrate its work upon the problem thus pre-
sented, and to study it as a whole; in other words, to apply to it the
tests and disciplines of history. Just as the War itself was a single
event, though penetrating by seemingly unconnected ways to the
remotest parts of the world, so the analysis of it must be developed

-v-