Battling to the End: Conversations with Benoît Chantre - Softcover

Girard, René

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0870138774 ISBN 13: 9780870138775

Publisher: Michigan State University Press, 2009

Synopsis

Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831), the Prussian military theoretician who wrote On War, is known above all for his famous dictum: “War is the continuation of politics by other means.” In René Girard’s view, however, the strategist’s treatise offers up a more disturbing truth to the reader willing to extrapolate from its most daring observations: with modern warfare comes the insanity of tit-for-tat escalation, which political institutions have lost their ability to contain. Having witnessed the Napoleonic Wars firsthand, Girard argues, Clausewitz intuited that unbridled “reciprocal action” could eventually lead foes to total mutual annihilation. Haunted by the Franco-German conflict that was to ravage Europe, in Girard’s account Clausewitz is a prescient witness to the terrifying acceleration of history. Battling to the End issues a warning about the apocalyptic threats hanging over our planet and delivers an authoritative lesson on the mimetic laws of violence.
 

About this title

About the Author:

René Girard is a member of the French Academy and Emeritus Professor at Stanford University. His books have been translated and acclaimed worldwide. He received the Modern Language Association’s Award for Lifetime Scholarly Achievement in 2008.

About this edition

• Publisher: Michigan State University Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0870138774
• ISBN 13: 9780870138775
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256