PRICE, Morgan Philips.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

The Diplomatic History of the War. First edition, the copy of future Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, with his ownership signature dated 7 November 1914 to the front free endpaper, and presumably used in preparing his review for The Labour Leader, published five days later on 12 November.MacDonald resigned as chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party in protest at Britain's entry into the First World War. Price, a former Liberal parliamentary candidate, also opposed the war, and both joined the anti-war Union of Democratic Control.The Diplomatic History of the War sought to demonstrate that all the European powers were responsible for the war, which was the result of secret diplomacy and competing alliances. In his review, Ramsay MacDonald wrote that, when attacked for opposing Britain's entry into the war, he could defend himself "by quoting page after page of the impartial narrative of this book... It sets out in a clear, analytical fashion the progress of events during the busy critical days which preceded the war and, in consequence, blows to smithereens nine-tenths of what is being said and written now. I suppose it will be said that the book will depress recruiting - just as though the country can only fight on lies!... I hope this book will be widely studied". The front pastedown has the bookplates of his son, Malcolm MacDonald (1901-1981), who served as Governor of Kenya in 1963, and of the militaria collector David D. Levine (1944-2020).

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