Whoever would understand war must give special attention: (1) to the _economic interpretation of history_; (2) to the _class struggle_, considered historically and currently; and (3) to _surplus value_, produced by the workers, but legally escaping from their control to the capitalist class—as a result of the institution of private ownership and private control of the collectively used means of production. The fact, the method, the purpose, and the result of the _legal confiscation_ of that part of the world’s wealth which the workers produce and are not permitted to enjoy—must have careful study. In the light of such studies, national and international policies, politics and war can be understood. And as war is thus understood we can make rapid headway against war. Pretty little speeches and essays on the beauties of peace, with “please-be-good” perorations,—such efforts, however carefully prepared, tearfully punctuated, elegantly printed and prayerfully delivered, will result in—nothing. That is to say, occasional literary and oratorical snowballs ignorantly, gracefully and grammatically tossed in the direction of hell will have no effect on the general temperature of that warlike region. (See Index: “Another War,” “The Hague Peace Conference,” and “The Explanation.”) A Reading Course. In the following list of readings those indicated by parenthesis thus () would serve as a shorter course. (1) Kautsky: _The Capitalist Class_; _The Working Class_; _The Class Struggle_; _Ethics and the Materialistic Conception of History_; and _The Road to Power_, Chapters 8 and 9. (2) Simons: _The Man Under the Machine_, and _Class Struggles in America_. (3) Marx: _Wage-Labor and Capital_; Marx and Engels: _The Communist Manifesto_. (4) Massart and Vandervelde: _Parasitism—Social and Organic_. (5) Myers: _History of Great American Fortunes_, entire work is an account of social parasitism in America; special references: Vol. II., pp. 127–38, 291–301; Chapters 11 and 12; Vol. III., pp. 160–176. (6) Veblen: _The Theory of the Leisure Class_. (7) Ross: _Social Control; The Foundations of Sociology_, pp. 219–23, 272–76; _Social Psychology_, Chapters on Suggestibility, The Crowd, and Mob Mind. (8) L. F. Ward: _Dynamic Sociology_, Vol. I., pp. 565–597; _Psychic Factors in Civilization_, Chapters 33 and 38; _Applied Sociology_, pp. 224–295, 300–302, 307–313, 319–326; _Pure Sociology_, pp. 266–72; “Social Classes in the Light of Modern Sociological Theory,” _American Journal of Sociology_, March, 1908; _Education and Progress_, Address delivered before the “Plebs” League, Oxford, England, August 2, 1909. 9 W. G. Sumner: _Folkways_, Chapter 6. (10) Morgan: _Ancient Society_, pp. V.-VIII.; Pt. I. Chs. 1–3; and all of Pt. IV. (11) J. O. Ward: _Ancient Lowly_, Chapter—“Spartacus.” 12 Shoaf: _The Story of the Mollie McGuires_. 13 Hanford: _The Labor War in Colorado_.