Synopsis
This lively book reveals a remarkable--and tremendously important--finding: fully democratic nations have never made war on other democracies. Furthermore, says the author, they probably never will. He analyzes for the first time every instance in history of a democracy confronting another with military force, from ancient Athens to modern America, and offers practical advice to ensure future peace.
Reviews
One of our cherished mythologies is that democracies do not fight each other. Weart, director of the Center for the History of Physics at the American Insitute of Physics and author most recently of Nuclear Fear: A History of Images (LJ 5/1/88), has examined hundreds of battles over the centuries between republics, oligarchies, democracies, and autocracies to show that, indeed, democracies do not seem to attack one another. The reason, Weart proposes, turns out to be rather simple: democratic leaders are not inclined to war on other nations whose citizenry hold the same basic ideals and principles as they. The author concludes that this is not the case with republics or with nations ruled by autocracies or dictators. Since the enemy is easier to designate as the "other," war more readily transpires. Weart bases his thesis on an enormous amount of research in historical, sociological, anthropological, and political science sources. He mixes the methodologies of all these disciplines to arrive at his well-argued conclusions. A remarkable piece of scholarship; for all large collections and for those specializing in war and peace studies.?Edward Goedeken, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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