Civil Wars
-
- $16.99
-
- $16.99
Publisher Description
A highly original history of the least understood and most intractable form of organised human aggression, from ancient Rome to our present conflict-ridden world We think we know civil war when we see it. Yet ideas of what it is, and isn't, have a long and contested history. Defining the term is acutely political, for ideas about what makes a war "civil" often depend on whether one is ruler or rebel, victor or vanquished, sufferer or outsider; it can also shape a conflict's outcome, determining whether external powers are involved or stand aside. From the American Revolution to the Iraq war, pivotal decisions have hung on such shifts of perspective. The West's age of civil war may be over, but elsewhere it has exploded - from the Balkans to Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia, Sri Lanka and, most recently, Syria. And the language of civil war has burgeoned as democratic politics has become more violently fought. This book's unique perspective on the roots, dynamics and shaping force of civil war will be essential to our ongoing struggles with this seemingly interminable problem.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Armitage (The Declaration of Independence: A Global History), a professor of history at Harvard, succeeds in his quest to distinguish civil wars from revolutionary wars, and different kinds of civil wars from one another, in a learned book that cuts a trail through "an impoverished area of inquiry." Starting with the Greeks and Romans and arriving in the 21st century, Armitage leads readers down long, murky paths that writers, historians, and philosophers have previously trod without making the type of lasting, satisfying distinctions he seeks. As Armitage shows, this is a surprisingly complex subject filled with much heavy speculation. But where others, including many whose thinking Armitage analyzes and quotes, employ laborious prose, his book is a model of its kind: concise, winningly written, clearly laid out, trenchantly argued. Armitage contends that failure to understand civil wars which are normal and perhaps unavoidable has burdened the understanding of history and policy in unfortunate ways. His conclusion is sobering: human societies may never be without this kind of conflict, and we're better off trying to understand it than ignoring its problematic nature. It's hard to imagine a more timely work for today. Historians, political scientists and theorists, and policy makers will find it indispensable.
