The verdict of battle : the law of victory and the making of modern war / James Q. Whitman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Whitman, James Q., 1957-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

War--Moral and ethical aspects.

War.

Combat--Moral and ethical aspects.

Combat.

Battles--Europe--History--18th century.

Battles.

Military art and science--Europe--History--18th century.

Military art and science.

War (International law).

Military ethics--History--18th century.

Military ethics.

Europe--History, Military--18th century.

Europe.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (323 p.)

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2012.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Today, war is considered a last resort for resolving disagreements. But a day of staged slaughter on the battlefield was once seen as a legitimate means of settling political disputes. James Whitman argues that pitched battle was essentially a trial with a lawful verdict. And when this contained form of battle ceased to exist, the law of victory gave way to the rule of unbridled force. The Verdict of Battle explains why the ritualized violence of the past was more effective than modern warfare in bringing carnage to an end, and why humanitarian laws that cling to a notion of war as evil have led to longer, more barbaric conflicts. Belief that sovereigns could, by rights, wage war for profit made the eighteenth century battle's golden age. A pitched battle was understood as a kind of legal proceeding in which both sides agreed to be bound by the result. To the victor went the spoils, including the fate of kingdoms. But with the nineteenth-century decline of monarchical legitimacy and the rise of republican sentiment, the public no longer accepted the verdict of pitched battles. Ideology rather than politics became war's just cause. And because modern humanitarian law provided no means for declaring a victor or dispensing spoils at the end of battle, the violence of war dragged on. The most dangerous wars, Whitman asserts in this iconoclastic tour de force, are the lawless wars we wage today to remake the world in the name of higher moral imperatives.

Contents:

Why battles matter

Accepting the wager of battle

Laying just claim to the profits of war

The monarchical monopolization of military violence

Were there really rules?

The death of pitched battle.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780674071872

0674071875

9780674068117

0674068114

OCLC:

1002222689