Pre-WWI gets a lot of rose-tinted views due to fact that a lot of our accounts of living from that time come from well off folks - there isn't much literature and art that came out of the working classes - there were certainly a few good examples but it would become much more prominent when the great depression equalized classes and forced well educated folks to endure the same life the poor had been enduring.

I would still consider WWI the last hurrah of prestige wars (where an essentially divine monarch instigated war for personal reasons and had the authority to enforce his will over the entire nation) but the hardships were real going into it.

Content people tend to lean away from conflict - the marshall plan in europe seems to bear that out pretty clearly in my eyes. I think it's a rather successful demonstration of the fact that stability breeds peace and, honestly, the US military agrees with me... a decent chunk of money in Iraqi Freedom was invested into infrastructure repair and, especially, education.

To achieve peace you need to make life worth more than death.

"I would still consider WWI the last hurrah of prestige wars (where an essentially divine monarch instigated war for personal reasons and had the authority to enforce his will over the entire nation)"

I agree to that, but I would add, that the monarch did not had to enforce their will on the nation. At least germany was very willing to go cheering into war. And I believe england, too and france (without a monarch), too. In russia it was more enforced, but the tsar eventually lost his power and life over it.

It was a nationalistic war - each side fought for the glory and power of their nation (whether with a monarch, or not). And maybe yes, the last big hurah war - where war was welcomed by the majority of the population.

WW2 had to be presented as neccessary and forced upon from the outside. Even in Nazi-germany. Some youth went into the fight eagerly, but most of the elder generations had way too many memories of the last one, which was not so glorious alltoghether.

(Oh and I certainly do not have a rose tinted view of pre WW1.)