The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History - Hardcover

Bobbitt, Philip

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375412921 ISBN 13: 9780375412929

Publisher: Knopf, 2002

Synopsis

"We are at a moment in world affairs when the essential ideas that govern statecraft must change. For five centuries it has taken the resources of a state to destroy another state . . . This is no longer true, owing to advances in international telecommunications, rapid computation, and weapons of mass destruction. The change in statecraft that will accompany these developments will be as profound as any that the State has thus far undergone."
—from the Prologue

The Shield of Achilles is a classic inquiry into the nature of the State, its origin in war, and its drive for peace and legitimacy. Philip Bobbitt, a professor of constitutional law and a historian of nuclear strategy, has served in the White House, the Senate, the State Department, and the National Security Council in both Democratic and Republican administrations, and here he brings his formidable experience and analytical gifts to bear on our changing world. Many have observed that the nation-state is dying, yet others have noted that the power of the State has never been greater. Bobbitt reconciles this paradox and introduces the idea of the market-state, which is already replacing its predecessor. Along the way he treats such themes as the Long War (which began in 1914 and ended in 1990). He explains the relation of violence to legitimacy, and the role of key individuals in fates that are partially—but only partially—determined.

This book anticipates the coalitional war against terrorism and lays out alternative futures for the world. Bobbitt shows how nations might avoid the great power confrontations that have a potential for limitless destruction, and he traces the origin and evolution of the State to such wars and the peace conferences that forged their outcomes into law, from Augsburg to Westphalia to Utrecht to Vienna to Versailles.

The author paints a powerful portrait of the ever-changing interrelatedness of our world, and he uses his expertise in law and strategy to discern the paths that statehood will follow in the coming years and decades. Timely and perceptive, The Shield of Achilles will change the way we think about the world.

About this title

Review:

The scope of Philip Bobbitt's The Shield of Achilles is breathtaking: the interplay, over the last six centuries, among war, jurisprudence, and the reshaping of countries ("states," in Bobbitt's vocabulary). Bobbitt posits that certain wars should be deemed epochal--that is, seen as composed of many "smaller" wars. For example, according to Bobbitt the epochal war of the 20th century began in 1914 and ended with the collapse of communism in 1990. These military affairs--and their subsequent "ultimate" peace agreements--have caused, each in their own way, revolutionary reconstructions of the idea and actuality of statehood and, following, of relationships between these various new entities. Of these reconstructions (including the princely state, the kingly state, and the nation-state), Bobbitt is most interested in the current incarnation, which he calls the market-state: one whose borders are scuffed and hazy at best (certainly compared to earlier territorial markers) and whose strengths, weaknesses, citizens, and enemies roam across cyberspace rather than plains and valleys. The Shield of Achilles is massive, erudite, and demanding--at once highly abstract and extremely detailed. There is about it an air of detached erudition, one noticeably free of the easy "decline and fall" hysteria too often present in contemporary historical analyses. --H. O'Billovich

From the Back Cover:

“Magisterial in its scope and ambition. . . . Bobbitt’s evolutionary map of warfare’s impact onteh state foreshadows the kinds of events still unfolding.” —The New York Times

“I take my hat off to the author for the boldness of his enterprise, for his scholarship, and for his capacity to get the reader to think along new lines. The Shield of Achilles may well become a classic.” —Paul Kennedy, The New York Review of Books

“Excellent . . . This book – with its masterly reappraisal of modern history and subtle elucidation of today’s geopolitics – should be on every desk in the State Department.” —National Review

“Philip Bobbit is to be saluted for undertaking an epic struggle to sort through an extraordinarily dynamic time in international affairs.” —The Washington Post Book World

“Once in a great while, there comes a book so ambitious in scope and so original in its insights that it challenges our comfortable patterns of thought and provokes widespread discussion in academic and political circles . . . a rare and important book.” —Fort Worth Star Telegram

“The Shield of Achilles should become required reading not only in the academy but for the military and civilian decision-makers of the industrialized world.” —The Weekly Standard

“[The Shield of Achilles] will be one of the most important works in international relations published during the last fifty years.” —Sir Michael Howard, author of War and the Liberal Conscience

“This is a bold book, a brave book, and a worthy primer for the essential study of where we go from here.” —The Times (London)

[The Shield of Achilles] will be one of the most important works in international relations published during the last fifty years.” –Sir Michael Howard, author of War and the Liberal Conscience

“This is a bold book, a brave book, and a worthy primer for the essential study of where we go from here.” –The Times (London)

“We are all about to have our view of the world turned upside down by this superb book.”–Chris Patten, The Guardian (UK)

“An extraordinarily sophisticated and comprehensive survey of war, peace, and nationhood. . . . Bobbitt has made a valuable contribution to wider understanding of how the world really works.”–The Dallas Morning News

“Remarkable. . . An audacious, massively informed analysis of the nature of the modern state and of modern war.”–Richard Overy, Literary Review

“A blockbuster on the history and future of the modern state. . . I defy you to read this and claim your understanding has not been enriched.”–Adam Roberts, The Independent (UK)

“Awe-inspiring. An alarming glimpse of our future. . . argumentative, opinionated, brilliant. . . A triumph.”–Evening Standard

“One of the key texts at the birth of the new century.”–Philip Ziegler

“Wide-ranging, ambitiously conceived, and intelligently argued. . . . Bobbitt’s future scenarios are based on an intelligent and cautiously realistic extrapolation of current security and political developments. We ignore them at our peril.”–The Times Literary Supplement (UK)

“Remarkable. . . Breathtaking in its range of reference, forcefully written.”–London Review of Books

“Fascinating. . . This book will certainly stimulate a needed discussion of America’s foreign policy.”–Christian Science Monitor

“Immensely and deliberately provocative. . . A passionate and worthy effort to make sense of what is clearly a brand new world.”–New York Sun

“Detailed and provocative. . . . A valuable and intriguing look at where we have been and where we are going.”–Booklist

“A brilliant, disquieting essay on geopolitics, warfare and the future of the state. . . . Few historical studies are as daring and engaging as this.”–Kirkus Reviews

From the Trade Paperback edition.

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0375412921
• ISBN 13: 9780375412929
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 960