The Barbarisation of Warfare

Description

Images from Baghdad’s now notorious Abu Ghraib prison have come to define the ill-starred occupation of Iraq, but they also remind us of war’s undiminished brutality and indiscriminate excess. Yet, what happened in Abu Ghraib took place, sometimes on a huge scale, during World War II and later in Kenya, Algeria, Vietnam, Bosnia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Chechnya, bearing witness to our capacity to act in barbarous ways if circumstances permit. What drives people to mistreat, humiliate and torment each other? In an age when violence and torture are becoming addictive media spectacles, now more than ever should we investigate brutality and inhumanity in times of war. With original contributions from world-class scholars, this book raises disturbing questions: Can warfare be anything other than barbaric? Are we all human, or are some of us less human than others in wartime? Can torture ever be justified? The Barbarisation of Warfare is a provocative and hard-hitting analysis of the human misery and complex moral dimensions of modern warfare.

Reviews

‘An impressive assessment of an important, if grim, subject by an outstanding group of scholars. It is one of the very few books whose own scale matches that of the events it describes.’ — John Mueller, Woody Hayes Chair of National Security at Ohio State University and author of The Remnants of War

‘Fascinating, revealing and disturbing … The Barbarisation of Warfare is a book that none of us should ignore.’ — Moazzam Begg, former Guantanamo Bay detainee and author of Enemy Combatant: A British Muslim’s Journey to Guantanamo and Back

‘This book shows us the true barbarism of warfare. It makes brilliant but unsettling reading. Viewed together, the essays offer as good a sustained critique of war as is available anywhere in print, combined with a passion and engagement that is all too rare in first rate scholarship. The book is to be greatly treasured as an important contribution in a field of study that remains depressingly relevant in the world today.’ — Professor C. A. Gearty, London School of Economics

Editor(s)

George Kassimeris, Professor of Security Studies at Wolverhampton University, is the author/editor of seven books including Inside Greek Terrorism, Europe’s Last Red Terrorists: The Revolutionary Organisation 17 November, The Barbarisation of Warfare and Playing Politics with Terrorism: A User’s Guide.