Bloomsbury War and Peace in the Western Political Imagination: From Classical Antiquity to the Age of Reason

Review In this smart and tightly argued book Professor Manning offers a compelling explanation for why war and a martial ethos became so entrenched in the western imagination since antiquity, and why a peace alternative had such difficulty taking hold, at least until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Anyone interested in learning about the history of war and peace ideas will find this well-researched and richly contextualized work indispensable. --Ben Lowe, Professor of History, Florida Atlantic University, USA and author of Imagining Peace: A History of Early English Pacifist Ideas, 1340-1560 An important work on a crucial aspect of political thought. Manning ranges widely to offer a coherent, interesting and engaged account. Deserves much attention. --Jeremy Black, Professor of History, University of Exeter, UK Product Description The study of war in all periods of prehistory and recorded history has always commanded the attention of historians, dramatists, poets and artists. The study of peace has, however, not yet gained a comparable readership, and the subject is attracting an increasing amount of scholarly research. This volume presents the first work of academic research to tackle this imbalance head on. It looks at war and peace through the ages, from the Classical world through to the 18th century. It considers the nature and advocacy of war and peace both from an historical perspective but also a philosophical one, particularly looking at how universal peace, which began as a personal philosophy, became over the centuries a political philosophy that underpins much of modern societys attitudes towards warfare and militarism. Roger Manning begins his journey through history by looking at the Greek martial ethos and philosophical concepts of peace and war in the ancient world; moving through the Roman empires military advances, he explores the concepts of war and peace in the medieval world and the Renaissance, with the writing of Machiavelli and Erasmus; finally, his account of the search for a science of peace in the 17th and 18th centuries brings the book to its conclusion. About the Author Roger B. Manning is Emeritus Professor of History, Cleveland State University, USA. He has published widely on British and military history, including An Apprenticeship in Arms (2006) and Swordsmen: The Martial Ethos in the Three Kingdoms (2003).