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gregbrown's review against another edition
5.0
A nice, neat history covering the attempts to regulate warfare under international law—and the ongoing question of whether it's more important to prevent war in the first place, or ensure it's conducted humanely.
I thought the tension was wholly novel to the present thanks to smart bombs and other "precision" targeting, but activists have been arguing about it for well over a century now, predicting a future that's now come to pass. The book does lend good background to (and makes a great pairing with) Charlie Savage's Power Wars about Obama entrenching Bush administration expansion of military/executive power by building a legal structure to "legitimize" it.
The book goes into less detail about our present moment than I'd like, but it's plenty thought-provoking and endlessly applicable. It certainly makes sense that decreasing the friction and expected human costs (both domestic and foreign) of military action makes it more likely that action takes place—and we've seen that borne out in practice.
Moyn likens the ongoing transnational drone and special forces regime to a more violent form of policing, but I think the idea applies just as well to domestic policing. The reaction since 2014 has been to provide increased training and monitoring through body cameras, but with the intent to try and legitimize an ongoing domination of poor and minority communities. They're spending millions on cop cities, training compounds that mimic neighborhoods where cops can practice violent crackdowns on dissent. Not great!
I thought the tension was wholly novel to the present thanks to smart bombs and other "precision" targeting, but activists have been arguing about it for well over a century now, predicting a future that's now come to pass. The book does lend good background to (and makes a great pairing with) Charlie Savage's Power Wars about Obama entrenching Bush administration expansion of military/executive power by building a legal structure to "legitimize" it.
The book goes into less detail about our present moment than I'd like, but it's plenty thought-provoking and endlessly applicable. It certainly makes sense that decreasing the friction and expected human costs (both domestic and foreign) of military action makes it more likely that action takes place—and we've seen that borne out in practice.
Moyn likens the ongoing transnational drone and special forces regime to a more violent form of policing, but I think the idea applies just as well to domestic policing. The reaction since 2014 has been to provide increased training and monitoring through body cameras, but with the intent to try and legitimize an ongoing domination of poor and minority communities. They're spending millions on cop cities, training compounds that mimic neighborhoods where cops can practice violent crackdowns on dissent. Not great!
binstonbirchill's review
4.0
Does the quest to make war humane lead to more war.
Humane traces the history of peace movements and human war advocates from Tolstoy to Trump. It gives one a lot to think about, especially the inattention of the masses who only tune in when a shocking new atrocity occurs (and sometimes not even then) and only very briefly.
Humane traces the history of peace movements and human war advocates from Tolstoy to Trump. It gives one a lot to think about, especially the inattention of the masses who only tune in when a shocking new atrocity occurs (and sometimes not even then) and only very briefly.
bookanonjeff's review against another edition
5.0
Dense Yet Enlightening. This is a book about the history of the philosophical and legal thoughts and justifications for transitioning from the brutal and bloody wars of the 19th century (when the history it covers begins) through to the "more humane" but now seemingly endless wars as currently waged, particularly by the United States of America. As in, this treatise begins with examinations of Tolstoy and Von Clauswitz during the Napoleonic Wars and ends with the Biden Presidency's early days of the continuation of the drone wars of its two predecessors. Along the way, we find the imperfections and even outright hypocrisies of a world - and, in the 21st century in particular, in particular a singular nation on the ascendancy, the United States - as it struggles with how best to wage and, hopefully, end war. Moyn shows the transition from a mindset of peace to a mindset of more palatable (re: "less" horrific / "more" humane) perma-war. But as to the description's final point that this book argues that this might not be a good thing at all... yes, that point is raised, and even, at times, central. But the text here seems to get more in depth on the history of documenting the change rather than focusing in on the philosophical and even legal arguments as to why that particular change is an overall bad thing. Ultimately this is one of those esoteric tomes that those with a particular interest in wars and how and why they are waged might read, if they are "wonks" in this area, but probably won't have the mass appeal that it arguably warrants. The central premise is a conversation that *needs* to be had in America and the world, but this book is more designed for the think tank/ academic crowd than the mass appeal that could spark such conversations. Still, it is truly well documented and written with a high degree of detail, and for this it is very much recommended.