The Verdict of Battle : The Law of Victory and the Making of Modern War / James Q. Whitman.
Whitman, James Q., author.
2012
U22
Available Online

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Title The Verdict of Battle : The Law of Victory and the Making of Modern War / James Q. Whitman.
Author Whitman, James Q., author.
ISBN 9780674068117
DOI https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674068117
Published Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2012]
Copyright ©2012
Language English
Language Note In English.
Description 1 online resource
Other Standard Identifiers 10.4159/harvard.9780674068117 doi
Call Number U22
Dewey Decimal Classification 172/.42
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.
Access Note Access limited to authorized users.
System Details Note Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
Digital File Characteristics text file PDF
Source of Description Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)
In E-BOOK GESAMTPAKET / COMPLETE PACKAGE 2012
E-BOOK PACKAGE LAW 2012
E-BOOK PAKET RECHTSWISSENSCHAFTEN 2012
HUP Complete eBook Package 2011-2014
HUP eBook Package 2012
HUP eBook Package Backlist 2000-2013
HUP eBook Package Backlist 2000-2014
HUP eBook Package Backlist 2000-2015
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Frontmatter
Contents
A Note to the Reader
Introduction
1. Why Battles Matter
2. Accepting the Wager of Battle
3. Laying Just Claim to the Profits of War
4. The Monarchical Monopolization of Military Violence
5. Were There Really Rules?
6. The Death of Pitched Battle
Conclusion
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index

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