Overview

Traditions of War examines wars and military occupation, and the ideas underlying them. The search for these ideas is conducted in the domain of the laws of war, a body of rules which sought to regulate the practices of war and those permitted to fight in it. This work introduces three ideologies: the martial, Grotian, and republican. These traditions were rooted in incommensurable conceptions of the good life, and the overall argument is that these differences lay at the heart of the failure fully to resolve the distinction between lawful and unlawful combatants at successive diplomatic conferences of Brussels in 1874, the Hague in 1899 and 1907, and Geneva in 1949. Based on a wide range of sources and a plurality of intellectual disciplines, this book places these diplomatic failures in their broader social and political contexts. By bringing out idealogical continuities and drawing on the social history of army occupation in Europe and resistance to it, this book both challenges and illuminates our understanding of modern war.

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9780198294078

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`This is a valuable and challenging book' Military History `Nabulsi's book demonstrates creativity of a very high order. Its strength lies in its inspired attempt to identify neglected strands in the history of international thought ... original and provocative, and also illustrated from impressively eclectic reading...thought provokng.' English Historical Review `'This book is as remarkable in its originality and the boldness of its intellectual approach as in the richness and variety of its erudition... Her book does not merely deploy a staggering erudition in such specialised realms as the history of war and military art, but also in the domain of political philosophy, where it is brimming with illuminating analyses and intuitions on patriotism and nationalism, on the logic of State, and on the republican spirit'' -Professor Pierre Hassner, Critique Internationale

Politics, law and war are skilfully interwoven ... This is more a work of political thought than about the practice of war, but a reminder of the importance to military history of varied responses to occupation. European History Quarterly This is a valuable and challenging book. Military History Nabulsi's book demonstrates creativity of a very high order. Its strength lies in its inspired attempt to identify neglected strands in the history of international thought ... original and provocative, and also illustrated from impressively eclectic reading...thought provokng. English Historial Review

Author Information

Karma Nabulsi is Prize Research Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford

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