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War and Peace in the Western Political Imagination Also Available from Bloomsbury War and Peace in the Western Political Imagination Also Available from Bloomsbury The Roman Army, David Breeze Marius, Federico Santangelo War: A Short History, Jeremy Black War and Peace (Problems in Theology), edited by Jeff Astley, David Brown, and Ann Loades War and Peace in the Western Political Imagination From Classical Antiquity to the Age of Reason Roger B. Manning Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc LONDON • OXFORD • NEW YORK • NEW DELHI • SYDNEY Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway London New York WC1B 3DP NY 10018 UK USA www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2016 Paperback edition fi rst published 2017 © Roger B. Manning, 2016 Roger B. Manning has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing- in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978–1–47425–870–8 PB: 978–1–47425–869–2 ePDF: 978–1–47425–872–2 ePub: 978–1–47425–871–5 Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk Dedicated to the memory of my grandmother Margaret Compton Manning Contents Preface ix Introduction x 1 The Legacy of Classical Antiquity 1 The Greek martial ethos 2 Alexander the Great and empire-building 13 Stoicism and Greek concepts of peace 18 The Roman military machine 24 Roman concepts of peace 31 Early Christian pacifism 38 Stoicism and constraints on war 40 2 War and Peace in the Medieval World 45 The Augustinian earthly city 46 Barbarians, war, and violence 54 Christianity and Germanic society 57 The Carolingian Empire and feudalism 63 Chivalry and warfare 67 Medieval just-war theories 74 The Peace and Truce of God 80 The papacy and the crusades 82 War and diplomacy in the Byzantine Empire 88 The Hundred Years War and papal diplomacy 94 Emergence of a peace ethic 97 3 Holy Wars, Crusades, and Religious Wars 105 Holy war in the Bible 106 The concepts of holy war 109 Islamic holy war 113 Crusades against the Saracens 119 The Turkish holy war against Christendom 126 viii Contents Crusades against Christians 133 Wars of the Reformation 142 French religious wars 155 Thirty Years War 166 British and Irish civil wars 170 4 Humanism and Neo-Stoicism 181 The Renaissance and the study of war and peace 182 The Machiavellians and the martial ethos 183 Erasmianism and irenic culture 189 The Salamancan School and just-war theory 194 Utopianism 197 Neo-Stoicism 199 Secular explanations of war and peace 209 5 The Search for a Science of Peace 215 Gentili and Grotius: Natural law and constraints on war 216 Classical republicans and martialism 225 Hobbes’s fear of civil strife 234 The science of politics 237 Political psychology: The science of peace and absolutism 243 Inventing peace 248 6 Conclusion 271 Appendix: Changing Meanings of the “Sinews of War” 285 Glossary 289 Notes 293 Bibliography 347 Index 359 Preface A person incurs many debts of gratitude in undertaking a new research project and writing a book crossing several academic disciplines and covering two thousand years of history. The research for this undertaking was carried out in the British Library, the Huntington Library, the Cleveland Public Library, and the Law School and University Libraries of Cleveland State University. I wish to thank the librarians of those worthy institutions for many kindnesses beyond the bounds of duty. My friend and colleague Samuel Clark was especially helpful and read several versions of the entire manuscript of this book. The anonymous readers of the Bloomsbury Academic Press offered much encouragement and many helpful suggestions. The editorial staff of the academic division of Bloomsbury Publishing have been especially helpful, and I particularly wish to thank Alice Wright, Anna MacDiarmid, Chloë Shuttlewood, and Lucy Carroll. As always, my greatest debt of gratitude is owed to my wife Anne Brown Manning, who has encouraged me to engage in scholarship and provided me with the leisure to do so for the past fifty- five years. Cleveland, OH July 2015 Introduction For empire and greatness, it importeth most that a nation do profess arms as their principal honour, study and occupation. “Of the Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates,” in The Works of Francis Bacon, ed. Basil Montagu, 3 vols., (Philadelphia: Parry & McMillan, 1857), I: 38 He who desires peace should diligently train his soldiers; he who hopes for favourable issues should fight by art and not by chance. John of Salisbury, Bishop of Chartres, The Statesman’s Book of John of Salisbury . Policratus, trans. John Dickenson (New York: Knopf, 1927), vi. 19 (p. 240) For much of human history, a martial ethos has dominated the thinking and actions of the rulers and aristocratic classes of city- states, empires, theocracies, feudal monarchies, dynastic states, and nation- states. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this was reinforced by a more explicit rhetoric of war, which in some totalitarian and militaristic societies, gave rise to a cult of war. In liberal democracies, war has come to be considered pathological since the time of the First World War. Following the devastation of the Second World War (or the last part of the “Second Thirty Years War” as Sir Michael Howard called it), a rhetoric of peace became more fashionable. There have always been advocates of peace, going back to antiquity, but it has always been more difficult to imagine universal peace because of a paucity of historical examples.1 Until the end of the eighteenth century and beyond, war was a way of life. From the time of the rise of sovereign states, the basic cause of wars was the competition for power and the survival of sovereign entities. In early modern Europe, war was regarded as something that happened between states, and consequently, may be viewed as an adjunct of the sovereign-s tate system. Diplomacy was employed not as a way of preserving peace, but as a means of Introduction xi securing a strategic advantage prior to the next war or as a means of negotiating an advantageous peace treaty after a war. This makes it difficult to distinguish times of peace from times of war.2 It is necessary to begin this study of the concepts of war and peace in the Western world with an examination of these topics in classical antiquity and the Middle Ages in order to observe how they were transmitted to early modern Europe. This is because the Greek myth of martial glory continued to exert an influence on the psychology of war and the culture of valor in the formative period of the modern state and society. These classical values were passed on through the intervening periods by the code of chivalry and its literary expressions as well as by the various chivalric and crusading orders. They survive in modern armies in the form of battle decorations and ribbons—even for those desk- bound warriors who have rarely, if ever, experienced combat.3 The mythology of war as a source of honor and a test of manly courage no longer finds wide acceptance. Most nation- states now belong to the United Nations and other international organizations that seek to resolve interstate disputes, end civil wars, contain terrorism, avoid genocides, administer humanitarian aid, and promote democratic government. These international bodies have enjoyed a certain degree of success, but are less effective in resolving disputes among great powers where the national interests of those great powers usually predominate. These national interests are driven by regional geopolitics, the search for sources of energy and raw materials, and the need to export in order to maintain full employment and avoid domestic unrest. Plans to reduce conflict and promote international peace often run up against networks of interests consisting of defense industries, intelligence agencies, military establishments, and legislators wishing to promote and protect business and employment in those industries and on those military bases within their constituencies. Such persons find universal peace hard to imagine. The Cold War may have ended, but new pretexts for military adventures and defense spending continue to present themselves. While the rationale for going to war has changed, and the lethality of warfare has lessened since the middle of the twentieth century, it cannot be demonstrated that the frequency of war has diminished.4 The Quaker mathematician Lewis F. Richardson undertook a complicated survey of what he called “deadly quarrels” covering the period between 1820 xii Introduction and 1952. These included the two World Wars, other interstate wars, civil wars, rebellions, slave revolts, and various military campaigns, which were arranged into six categories based on the magnitude of casualties.5 Including each of the two World Wars as single entities, the total number of wars and other deadly conflicts during this period totals 315. The manuscript of this book remained unpublished at the time of Richardson’s death, and it was subsequently edited and published by Quincy Wright and C.C.
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