World War I was both tragic and transforming for George Bernard Shaw.Like Europe as a whole, Shaw confronted the limits of his own views andstrategies during the Great War. The distinctive Shavian voice that hadchanged the face of socialism in Britain in the 1880s; the voice that helpedbuild the prestige of the Fabian Society, and, thereby, laid the foundationfor the British Labor Party; the voice that had conveyed Shaw’s politicalperspectives through theater, journalism, debates and lectures; the voicethat had made him famous worldwide—the Shavian irreverent and ironicconfrontation of his audience seemed to fail when Shaw confronted Europeat war.The problem was not the quality of insight. Many of Shaw’s views onthe war were uncannily prescient. In the Fall of 1914 he foresaw a long,bloody war. He predicted a second war if the peace terms were vindic-tive. He predicted a longer-term conflict between Russia and the West.He emphasized the essential role of the United States for ultimate victory,and he prescribed a Western European mutual defense pact that includedGermany as the key to enduring European peace. In his 1914 essay,Com-mon Sense about the War(1914/1931, hereafter,Common Sense), Shaw laidout these insights as a coherent set of warnings about the present and vi-sion for the future. Not all of his ideas were entirely new. Some, like theEuropean mutual defense pact, he had advocated before the war (Shaw,1913/1931). Laying out such a vision at that particular moment in history,however, was extraordinary—and thatwaspart of the problem.The world was not receptive to such extraordinary ideas. Even thoughCommon Sensewas read by a wide and influential audience, including U.S.President Wilson (Weintraub, 1971), Shaw had little direct influence on hisgovernment’s policies during the conflict. Many Britons were outragedby Shaw’s positions. Even some of his oldest and closest friends woulddistance themselves from him over the war.Intheend,Shaw’swartimejourneywouldbeextraordinaryforbothitsbreadth of ideas and depth of moral conviction.Common Sense, and Shaw’ssubsequent writing during the war, reflected years of thinking about theimpact of international relations on the goals of social justice to which Shawdevoted his life. Staying true to those convictions in the face of overwhelm-ing public opposition was courageous. Maintaining his good humor in theface of public and personal attacks demonstrated a commitment to endingthe war that went far beyond Shaw’s concern for his own reputation.In this chapter, I examine how ironic thinking contributed to Shaw’sinitial point of view and to changes in his perspective on the war. This is astory of moral passion from beginning to end. It is also a story of growth.Finally and inescapably, it is an examination of what Shaw’s irony maymean to us, at the beginning of the 21st century