War and History By Dana Carleton Munro, President of the
American Historical Association, 1925–26 Presidential address
delivered before the American Historical Association at
Rochester, December 28, 1926. Published in American Historical
Review 32, no. 2 (January 1927): 219–31. Books by Dana C. Munro
One hundred and twenty years ago the National Institute of
France set as a subject for a prize essay: “To examine the
influence of the Crusades upon the civil liberty of the peoples
of Europe, upon their civilization and upon the progress of
knowledge, commerce and industry.” This marked a change in the
conception of the Crusades. In the preceding century the
prevailing point of view had been expressed by Voltaire: “Thus
the only fruit of the Christians in their barbarous crusades was
the extermination of other Christians.” The action of the
Institute led to the writing of several essays; in particular
two, which shared the prize and are well worth reading at the
present day.1 Both of these treated briefly of the