Overview

The rise of American Empire has coincided with appeals for a more humane war. But what if efforts to make war more ethical—to ban torture and limit civilian casualties—have only shored up the military enterprise and made it sturdier? During this period the campaign to abolish wars has transformed into to opposing war crimes, with fateful consequences. The ramifications of this shift became apparent in the post-9/11 era. By that time, the US military had embraced the agenda of humane war, driven both by the availability of precision weaponry and the need to protect its image. The battle shifted from the streets to the courtroom, where the tactics of the war on terror were litigated but its foundational assumptions went without serious challenge. These trends only accelerated during the Obama and Trump presidencies. Even as the two administrations spoke of American power and morality in radically different tones, they ushered in the second decade of the “forever” war. Humane is the story of how America went off to fight and never came back, and how armed combat was transformed from an imperfect tool for resolving disputes into an integral component of the modern condition. As American wars have become more humane, they have also become endless. This provocative book argues that this development might not represent progress at all.

Full Product Details

9781839766190

Table of Contents

Reviews

An intensely readable journey . Moyn reminds us that the idea of human rights did not begin with the Second World War and is not an American invention; that individual rights and human dignity are not the same thing; that torture is a relatively recent taboo; that humanitarian intervention (the use of military force to 'civilise') offers certain dangers; and that newly arrived ideas of international criminal justice and courts will not offer an easy salvation. Moyn's impulses are critical yet he recognises what he calls the 'global radiance' of human rights in our times. There have been failures but also successes, so he seeks a 'reinvention' rather than a replacement. If human rights are to make a practical difference, to be more than an 'ornament on a tragic world which they do not transform', he wants them to be able to mobilise people, to be less centred on judges and more attentive to real economic and social needs. At a time of growing inequality, within and across borders, the last point will surely resonate, along with the broader underlying message: that the ideas underpinning modern human rights have become a fundamental part of our political culture, and that we ignore history at our peril. -- Phillippe Sands * Financial Times [for Human Rights and the Uses of History] * No one has done more than Samuel Moyn to unsettle the story of human rights as a triumphal march of upgrades from Magna Carta to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights -- Benjamin Nathans * New York Review of Books [for Not Enough] * Moyn has a genius for writing history that is intelligent, surprising, and disciplined by fine judgment -- Jedediah Purdy, author of After Nature: A Politics for the Anthropocene * [For Not Enough] * No one has written with more penetrating skepticism about the history of human rights than Samuel Moyn. . .This book, like the author's last, is the rare academic study that is sure to provoke a wider discussion about important political and economic questions. -- Adam Kirsch * Wall Street Journal [for Not Enough] * A most welcome book, The Last Utopia is a clear-eyed account of the origins of human rights : the best we have -- Tony Judt, author of Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 * [For The Last Utopia] * With unparalleled clarity and originality, Moyn's hard-hitting, radically revisionist, and persuasive history of human rights provides a bracing historical reconstruction with which scholars, activists, lawyers and anyone interested in the fate of the human rights movement today will have to grapple. -- Mark Mazower, author of No Enchanted Palace: * [For The Last Utopia] * We tend to think of the rise of humanitarian laws constraining the exercise of force as an unalloyed good. But Samuel Moyn's stunning new book, Humane, fundamentally upends this conventional wisdom, highlighting the extent to which efforts to rationalize war-making have gone hand in hand with an American Century marked by preemptive violence, forever wars, and a near-limitless global military footprint. In the process, Moyn also recovers and places at the center of political debate the now long-forgotten abolitionist tradition, which sought to end war rather than to reform it. This profound historical retelling is an essential and groundbreaking contribution. It will be debated for years to come, and should be read by any scholar, lawyer, or activist concerned with issues of war and peace -- Aziz Rana, author of <i>The Two Faces of American Freedom</i> Ours is an era of endless conflict, whose ideal symbol is the armed drone-occasionally firing a missile, which may kill the wrong people, but too far removed from everyday American life to rouse public objections. . . Moyn's argument goes beyond the expected humanitarian critique -- Dexter Filkin * The New Yorker * Smart and provocative . . . Arriving 20 years after 9/11, as the United States has withdrawn its troops from Afghanistan, Humane encourages readers to ask central questions too often lost amid the chatter of the foreign policy establishment * New York Times * [A] learned and provocative book . . . The biggest value of Moyn's book is the ethical questions he raises. Since war today has become so much less bloody, and involves so many fewer Americans, what is to stop it from becoming perpetual? -- Edward Luce Learned and provocative -- Edward Luce * Financial Times * Moyn skilfully takes us through the debates prompted by Vietnam about international law and how it should be adapted and enforced. Out of this came a determination to find a more humane way to fight such wars. -- Lawrence Freedman * New Statesman * Provocative -- Lawrence R. Douglas * Times Literary Supplement * [A] remarkably direct, focused and yet passionate analysis ... Moyn demonstrates throughout why war itself is the continuing problem. -- Arvind Sivaramakrishnan * The Hindu * A ground-breaking work -- Marc Martorell Junyent * Global Policy Journal *

We tend to think of the rise of humanitarian laws constraining the exercise of force as an unalloyed good. But Samuel Moyn's stunning new book, Humane, fundamentally upends this conventional wisdom, highlighting the extent to which efforts to rationalize war-making have gone hand in hand with an American Century marked by preemptive violence, forever wars, and a near-limitless global military footprint. In the process, Moyn also recovers and places at the center of political debate the now long-forgotten abolitionist tradition, which sought to end war rather than to reform it. This profound historical retelling is an essential and groundbreaking contribution. It will be debated for years to come, and should be read by any scholar, lawyer, or activist concerned with issues of war and peace -- Aziz Rana, author of <i>The Two Faces of American Freedom</i> Ours is an era of endless conflict, whose ideal symbol is the armed drone - occasionally firing a missile, which may kill the wrong people, but too far removed from everyday American life to rouse public objections...Moyn's argument goes beyond the expected humanitarian critique -- Dexter Filkin * The New Yorker * Smart and provocative...Arriving 20 years after 9/11, as the United States has withdrawn its troops from Afghanistan, Humane encourages readers to ask central questions too often lost amid the chatter of the foreign policy establishment * New York Times * [A] learned and provocative book...The biggest value of Moyn's book is the ethical questions he raises. Since war today has become so much less bloody, and involves so many fewer Americans, what is to stop it from becoming perpetual? -- Edward Luce Moyn skilfully takes us through the debates prompted by Vietnam about international law and how it should be adapted and enforced. Out of this came a determination to find a more humane way to fight such wars. -- Lawrence Freedman * New Statesman * Provocative -- Lawrence R. Douglas * Times Literary Supplement * [A] remarkably direct, focused and yet passionate analysis ... Moyn demonstrates throughout why war itself is the continuing problem. -- Arvind Sivaramakrishnan * The Hindu * A ground-breaking work -- Marc Martorell Junyent * Global Policy Journal * Important -- Henrietta Cullinan * Peace News *

We tend to think of the rise of humanitarian laws constraining the exercise of force as an unalloyed good. But Samuel Moyn's stunning new book, Humane, fundamentally upends this conventional wisdom, highlighting the extent to which efforts to rationalize war-making have gone hand in hand with an American Century marked by preemptive violence, forever wars, and a near-limitless global military footprint. In the process, Moyn also recovers and places at the center of political debate the now long-forgotten abolitionist tradition, which sought to end war rather than to reform it. This profound historical retelling is an essential and groundbreaking contribution. It will be debated for years to come, and should be read by any scholar, lawyer, or activist concerned with issues of war and peace -- Aziz Rana, author of <i>The Two Faces of American Freedom</i> Ours is an era of endless conflict, whose ideal symbol is the armed drone - occasionally firing a missile, which may kill the wrong people, but too far removed from everyday American life to rouse public objections...Moyn's argument goes beyond the expected humanitarian critique -- Dexter Filkin * The New Yorker * Smart and provocative...Arriving 20 years after 9/11, as the United States has withdrawn its troops from Afghanistan, Humane encourages readers to ask central questions too often lost amid the chatter of the foreign policy establishment * New York Times * [A] learned and provocative book...The biggest value of Moyn's book is the ethical questions he raises. Since war today has become so much less bloody, and involves so many fewer Americans, what is to stop it from becoming perpetual? -- Edward Luce Learned and provocative -- Edward Luce * Financial Times * Moyn skilfully takes us through the debates prompted by Vietnam about international law and how it should be adapted and enforced. Out of this came a determination to find a more humane way to fight such wars. -- Lawrence Freedman * New Statesman * Provocative -- Lawrence R. Douglas * Times Literary Supplement * [A] remarkably direct, focused and yet passionate analysis ... Moyn demonstrates throughout why war itself is the continuing problem. -- Arvind Sivaramakrishnan * The Hindu * A ground-breaking work -- Marc Martorell Junyent * Global Policy Journal * Important -- Henrietta Cullinan * Peace News *

Author Information

Samuel Moyn is Henry R. Luce Professor of Jurisprudence at Yale Law School and Professor of History at Yale University. He has written several books in his fields of European intellectual history and human rights history, including The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (2010), Human Rights and the End of HIstory (2014), and Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World (2018). He writes regularly for Boston Review, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Dissent, The Nation, The New Republic, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. In winter 2022, he is giving the prestigious Carlyle Lectures at Oxford University.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available