ABSTRACT
This chapter presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book shows how easily the racist or nationalist notions were preserved. Again and again we find illustrations which either personalized nations through allegorical figures Uncle Sam, John Bull, Marianne, Michel and so on or which represented some political leader as the epitome of his nation. The futility of war, which History was particularly anxious to teach, is now understood a good deal more widely than it was in 1939, although part of the reason is that weapons have increased immeasurably in their destructive power since that date. People have also learnt some lessons of history about the way in which wars happen. Economic nationalism is now much less widespread than it was in 1939. It is arguable, for example, that some cartoonists played a really significant part in alerting British people to the true character of Adolf Hitler.
