A World History of War Crimes: From Antiquity to the Present

Description

A World History of War Crimes provides a truly global history of war crimes and the involvement of the legal systems faced with these acts. Documenting the long historical arc traced by human efforts to limit warfare, from codes of war in antiquity designed to maintain a religiously conceived cosmic order to the gradual use in the modern age of the criminal trial as a means of enforcing universal norms, this book provides a comprehensive one-volume account of war and the laws that have governed conflict since the dawn of world civilizations. Throughout his narrative, Michael Bryant locates the origin and evolution of the law of war in the interplay between different cultures. While showing that no single philosophical idea underlay the law of war in world history, this volume also proves that war in global civilization has rarely been an anarchic free-for-all. Rather, from its beginnings warfare has been subject to certain constraints defined by the unique needs and cosmological understandings of the cultures that produce them. Only in late modernity has law assumed its current international humanitarian form. The criminalization of war crimes in international courts today is only the most recent development of the ancient theme of constraining when and how war may be fought.

Michael Bryant is Professor of History and Legal Studies, Bryant University, USA. He is the author of Confronting the "Good Death:" Nazi Euthanasia on Trial, 1945-53 (2005) and Eyewitness to Genocide: Jewish Witnesses, West German Courts, and the "Operation Reinhard" Trials, 1956-1966 (2014).

Michael Bryant's excellent global history of the evolution of the laws of war from antiquity to the present is an outstanding contribution to this emerging field of history and law. Because of his training in these fields, Prof. Bryant brings fresh interpretations to his analysis of the vast collection of primary and secondary sources that he uses throughout this study. It is a must read for anyone interested in the evolution of the laws of war throughout history. * David M. Crowe, Professor of History and Law, Elon University, USA * A World History of War Crimes is an ambitious project superbly carried through. The grand historical scale and sweep is complemented by Bryant's established expertise at the micro-level of legal history. The result is a clearly-written, authoritative, and ultimately optimistic account of the capacity of humanitarian law to curb some of the worst excesses of conflict. This excellent book merits a wide readership among jurists, political scientists and historians. * Donald Bloxham, University of Edinburgh, UK * [CC] Bryant (history and legal studies, Bryant Univ.) offers a comprehensive historical account of the efforts to limit violence in war. He shows that constraints on war emerged in ancient and medieval times through codes and religious ceremonialism and were further developed with the emergence of legal and moral principles in subsequent centuries ... This well-organized, clearly written text provides an excellent introduction to the rise and development of the law of war. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries. * CHOICE *