The Verdict of Battle
The Law of Victory and the Making of Modern War
Seiten
2014
Harvard University Press (Verlag)
978-0-674-41687-1 (ISBN)
Harvard University Press (Verlag)
978-0-674-41687-1 (ISBN)
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.
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.
James Q. Whitman is Ford Foundation Professor of Comparative and Foreign Law at Yale Law School.
| Verlagsort | Cambridge, Mass |
|---|---|
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 156 x 235 mm |
| Themenwelt | Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Militärgeschichte |
| Recht / Steuern ► Allgemeines / Lexika | |
| Recht / Steuern ► EU / Internationales Recht | |
| Recht / Steuern ► Rechtsgeschichte | |
| Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Europäische / Internationale Politik | |
| Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Politische Theorie | |
| ISBN-10 | 0-674-41687-2 / 0674416872 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0-674-41687-1 / 9780674416871 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
| Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR) | |
| Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt? |
Mehr entdecken
aus dem Bereich
aus dem Bereich
von der Wiederbewaffnung bis zur Zeitenwende
Buch | Softcover (2025)
C.H.Beck (Verlag)
CHF 16,80
Deutschlands großer Volksaufstand
Buch | Softcover (2024)
Propyläen Verlag
CHF 30,80
