War Machine â " The Rationalization of Slaughter in the Modern Age (Paper)

Pick, Daniel

ISBN 10: 0300067194 / ISBN 13: 9780300067194

Published by Yale University Press, 1996

About this Item

The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Seller Inventory # GOR004409132

Bibliographic Details

• Title: War Machine â " The Rationalization of Slaughter in the Modern Age (Paper)
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication Date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300067194
• ISBN 13: 9780300067194
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Very Good
• Weight: 435 grams

About this title

Synopsis

This fascinating book examines Western perceptions of war in and beyond the nineteenth century, surveying the writings of novelists, anthropologists, psychiatrists, poets, natural scientists, and journalists to trace the origins of modern philosophies about the nature of war and conflict.

Daniel Pick compares philosophical and historical models of conflict with fictions of invasion and biological speculation about the nature and value of conquest. He discusses the work of such familiar commentators on war as Clausewitz, Engels, and von Bernhardi, and examines little-known writings by Proudhon, De Quincey, Ruskin, Valery, and many others. He explores nineteenth-century English fears of French contamination through the Channel Tunnel and the widespread continuing dread of German domination. And he analyzes the history of the widely-shared European belief that war is beneficial or at least functionally necessary.

A central theme of the book is the disturbing relationship between machinery and destruction. According to Pick, relentless technological progress and the irresistible rise of the military-industrial complex risks turning conflict into little more than a sophisticated game played out by high-precision automata. Shorn of human agency or responsibility, war could become technologically unstoppable, a flawless mechanism for human slaughter.

From the Back Cover

This fascinating book examines Western perceptions of war in and beyond the nineteenth century, surveying the writings of novelists, anthropologists, psychiatrists, poets, natural scientists, and journalists to trace the origins of modern philosophies about the nature of war and conflict.