Only the Dead The Persistence of War in the Modern Age
shows that the evidence simply doesn't support the decline-of-war thesis propounded by scholars like Steven Pinker. He argues that the key to understanding trends in warfare lies, not in the spread of humanitarian values, but rather in the formation of international orders--sets of expectations
about behavior that allow countries to work in concert, as they did in the Concert of Europe and have done in the postwar Western liberal order. With a nod toward the American sociologist Charles Tilly, who argued that war made the state and the state made war, Braumoeller shows argues that the
same is true of international orders: while they reduce conflict within their borders, they can also clash violently with one another, as the Western and communist orders did throughout the Cold War. Both highly readable and rigorous, Only the Dead offers a realistic assessment of humanity's quest to abolish warfare. While pessimists have been too quick to discount the successes of our attempts to reduce international conflict, optimists are prone to put too much faith in human nature. Reality
lies somewhere in between: While the aspirations of humankind to govern its behavior with reason and justice have had shocking success in moderating the harsh dictates of realpolitik, the institutions that we have created to prevent war are unlikely to achieve anything like total success--as
evidenced by the multitude of conflicts in recent decades. As the old adage advises us, only the dead have seen the end of war.
| Publisher Name | Oxford University Press USA |
|---|---|
| Author Name | Hagendorf, Col |
| Format | Audio |
| Bisac Subject Major | POL |
| Language | NG |
| Isbn 10 | 0190849533 |
| Isbn 13 | 9780190849535 |
| Target Age Group | min:NA, max:NA |
| Dimensions | 00.94" H x 00.06" L x 20.00" W |
| Page Count | 344 |
Bear F. Braumoeller is a professor in the Department of Political Science at The Ohio State University who studies Great Power politics, international conflict, complex systems, and statistical methodology. He earned his Bachelor's degree at the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. at the University
of Michigan. He has previously been a faculty member at Harvard University and the University of Illinois and has been a Fellow at the Norwegian Nobel Institute. His first book, The Great Powers and the International System, won the Best Book Award from the International Studies Association as well
as the J. David Singer Award.
