James Q. Whitman is Ford Foundation Professor of Comparative and Foreign Law at Yale Law School.
In the course of unearthing the jus victoriae tradition,
Whitman offers a badly needed and faintly blasphemous revision of
the laws of war. (In contrast to the monoglot bibliographies of
most Anglo-American scholarship on the laws of war, Whitman engages
with original texts in both ancient and modern languages.) To begin
with, Whitman scrapes off several decades' worth of received ideas
from just war theory, now enjoying a revival... Most refreshingly,
Whitman rejects the piety that the laws of armed conflict-currently
euphemistically called 'international humanitarian law'-are crafted
in order to restrain lethal violence, rather than to facilitate and
optimize its use. Whitman cautions against the widespread faith in
the power of law to beat swords into humanitarian surgical
instruments... The legal tradition rediscovered by James Whitman
may eventually be useful in world politics, as in the multipolar
future that is very slowly arising. -- Chase Madar * Times Literary
Supplement *
Unlike some military historians, Whitman does not romanticize his
subject, or express any nostalgia for what Oliver Wendell Holmes
famously called the 'incommunicable experience' that allowed
soldiers to feel 'the passion of life to its top.'... [The
Verdict of Battle] offers a disturbing challenge to some of
today's most widely held assumptions about the history of
international relations... [Whitman displays] massive erudition,
stiletto-sharp logic, and the heated, repetitive eloquence of a
master litigator addressing a jury... A book that devotes so much
time to Central European battles of the 1740s, and to legal
luminaries whose careers pre-dated the American Revolution, will
probably attract few readers in the Department of State or the
United Nations. Yet the denizens of those institutions could do
worse than to read this book and ponder its conclusions... Whitman
has written an often brilliant book... An intelligent book such as
The Verdict of Battle, which reaches back into history to
provide a genuinely different perspective on warfare, deserves a
serious hearing. -- David A. Bell * New Republic *
Challenging contemporary views of the law of war and the function
of battle, Whitman asks readers to forget what they know about
post-Napoleonic wars of annihilation and revisit a time when a
battle was a momentous wager to resolve disputes by 'chance of
arms.' During the eighteenth century and well into the nineteenth,
the side that held the field after a pitched battle could claim
victory and so set the terms of peace. Battles were often bloody
and vicious, but at least they produced definitive conclusions
without spilling over into the rest of the country. Whitman knows
it is pointless to wax nostalgic for a past form of warfare that
might have worked for absolute monarchs but would hardly be suited
to the modern world. Still, comparing earlier wars with
contemporary 'fights to the finish' allows him to ruminate about
the possibilities for restraint in war and to challenge
international lawyers to develop a 'law of victory' that would
support agreement on who had won a war and what was gained as a
result. -- Lawrence D. Freedman * Foreign Affairs *
At a time of growing insularity among American lawyers, [Whitman's]
breadth of outlook is refreshing. He has a universal curiosity. His
historical knowledge is impressive. He writes with elegance and
wit... [A] stimulating book. -- Jonathan Sumption * Literary Review
*
Whitman offers a provocative argument against the idea that modern
Western laws and practices of war represent a vast improvement over
earlier models... The history Whitman provides is eye-opening. --
Brian Bethune * Maclean's *
A truly wonderful work, written in a captivating style. The
historical narrative is gripping, and impressive erudition springs
from the pages. Whitman's bold argument is that by outlawing war,
and any tangible winning, we have forced the entire exercise of war
to exist outside of law, and therefore, outside any true limits.
The Verdict of Battle is particularly challenging in its
implications-what we can or cannot learn from this history-for
conflict in the present day. -- Gabriella Blum, author of
Islands of Agreement: Managing Enduring Armed Rivalries
This is one of the most remarkable books about law to have emerged
in a long time. The depth and precision of the questions Whitman
asks, and the originality of the answers he proposes, take us from
the origins of the modern state to the ways in which law has
determined many of the fundamental features of the modern world.
Sure to be a classic, this stimulating and insightful book will
appeal to any reader curious about war, battles, or how the world
we inhabit came to be the way it is. -- William Ewald, University
of Pennsylvania Law School
This book cannot be ignored. Impressively erudite and brilliantly
audacious, it reinterprets centuries of writings on the law of war
and offers fundamental revisions and refutations of modern
authorities on the history of war itself. Readers will be
challenged, and while they may dispute elements of Whitman's
argument, they will gain immensely by coming to terms with his
interpretations. The Verdict of Battle goes well beyond a
'must-read'; it rises to the level of the essential. -- John A.
Lynn, author of Battle: A History of Combat and Culture
The Verdict of Battle is an exceptionally important book
from a master historian that places our current debates concerning
the laws of war in a telling new light. Whitman is a provocative
critic of the ways in which humanitarianism has come to modern
law-and distorted our understanding of premodern warfare. The book
will completely recast future discussion among historians and leave
other readers pondering what can be done to legalize conflict to
serve humanity for the better. -- Samuel Moyn, author of The
Last Utopia: Human Rights in History
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