The Invention of Peace: Reflections on War and International Order

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Summary: Oh humanity!
Review: In a short and concise essay Micheal Howard explains why the universalist pretentions of idealists from many Western European countries are intellectually unsound. It is quite a strong bit of conceit that leads such misguided ideologues to believe that by simply imposing a Western European notion of peace through means of "internaltional law" war can be either outlawed or severely mitigated. Given that there are still a great many different cultures, with different views on peace, war, and the legitimacy of both, it is hard to imagine how to achieve the consensus necessary to legitimize such Kantian dreams. It is further a strong bit a irony that those who cry loudest for the imposition of their peaceful ideas on humanity as a whole also champion multiculturalist toleration, thereby implicity preserving the the very social structures that preclude the possibility of the establishment of a universally acceptable code of law. Even if this world-wide legitimacy were to be miraculously achieved sometime in the future, force would still be required to uphold it, as force is required to command obedience to cultural norms in all societies, no matter how homogeneous. "So although it is tempting to believe that as the international buorgeois community extends its influence a new and stable order will gradually come into being, we would be unwise to expect anything of the kind" (113). Unfortunately, wisdom is not seen as an impediment to sentimental action by the champions of the new juridical utopianism, who, having been forced to give up their previous attempts to legislate social justice by means of various past liberal ideologies, have moved on to international law. Although teleological theories of history have long been out of fashion in intellectual circles, the neo-Kantian dream remains strong among the self appointed moral elite.

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Summary: A beautiful intro to the history of peace
Review: In this short book, Sir Michael Howard, a professor at Yale, discusses the history of peace; starting with a quote from Sir Henry Maine, "War appears to be as old as mankind, but peace is a modern invention," the author narrates how the concept of peace has evolved over time.

The first chapter starts at the crowning of Charlemagne in 800 AD and reaches up to the outbreak of the French Revolution; the second chapter goes up to the end of the Great War; the third chapter discusses the ideological conflicts of the twentieth century up to 1989; and the last chapter outlines some of the author's thoughts on what the future might hold in the quest for peace.

One of the book's drawbacks is that is often assumes prior knowledge: certain historical events are simply mentioned without background information (philosophies and ideologies, on the contrary, are thoroughly explained). A second, and more serious, drawback is the book's inexplicable starting point, with excludes both the Roman Empire and the era of Alexander the Great. Finally, the author has no notes or bibliography; for such a work, a "suggested reading list" or "selected bibliography" would have been greatly appreciated.

Still, the book is splendid and will appeal both to the expert and the layman. And its ultimate message, that peace is neither natural nor guaranteed, should be taken at heart by scholars and politicians alike.

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Summary: The Invention of Peace
Review: The most important thing for you to know is that yes, peace was invented. It is a relatively new concept that is not clearly defined, and yet we strive for this idea that contradicts essentially all of human history. Michael Howard does a beautiful job of narrating this book, its' brevity hides the true depth of the authors' work. I must wholeheartedly recommend this to everyone.

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Summary: A fighting chance
Review: The title seems mildly ironic, but the cover (at least of my hardbound edition) dispels any subtlety: a panorama of an American military cemetery (Normandy?) with an endless sea of white crosses. Without delving into the philosophic trenches of why we kill one another, Sir Michael Howard has written a bracing account of the lengths we've gone (and continue to go) to avoid such tragedies. A brisk historical survey serves as both background and provider of his introductory thesis: while peace is new, modern, and barely tested, war is very old, established, and more entrenched than we realize.

Howard's tone throughout remains refreshingly apolitical. He writes as a scholar, deliberately avoiding the easy stridency his subject offers: how *should* we "invent peace?" Where did our ancestors go wrong? Instead, he simply surveys the landscape and allows readers to (gasp!) draw their own conclusions. This is not to suggest the work lacks recommendations; rather, that they appear pithy and well-reasoned, not sonorous and repetitive. Howard could teach his fellow academics a few lessons about writing for an educated popular audience.

Befitting these methods, the book's style is crisp and concise. Quoting one of the author's best points serves as excellent evidence: "World order cannot be created simply by building international institutions and organizations that do not arise naturally out of the cultural disposition and historical experience of their members." Rarely have I seen a better point made in a single sentence; in a seemingly single stroke, Howard crushes the myth that the U.N. (his obvious target) can somehow impose order on unwilling populations. How many millions of dollars-not to mention thousands of lives-could have been saved by heeding this sage advice?

Though his historical survey generally supports these points, Howard has actually written more an essay than a book. No major fault in that; I learned more about the historical signposts of peace-the significance of Westphalia, the treaties of Vienna and Berlin-than any university has told me. But covering 1200 years of war (and around 300 of stumbling peace) in a little over a hundred pages feels thin-Sir Michael's pedigree notwithstanding. Even leaving the thin treatment of history aside, a richer development of his major points-like the one quoted above-would have been more than welcome.

But these faults pale next to the book's lessons. Anyone concerned about the prospects of peace in our increasingly interconnected world will derive huge benefits from this read. The author's call should especially be heard by those attempting to impose order on a worldly scale (certain groups in New York and The Hague come to mind, along with increasingly powerful non-governmental organizations); this book provides ample evidence for reconsidering their methods-if not their very charter.

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Summary: Slim, Pointed, It's About Culture and Obedience to a State
Review: This is an essay with deep insights, but it is not a portal to other knowledge as it lacks any notes or bibliography. The author is one of our top strategists, historians, and teachers of war and peace and this is very much a capstone presentation.

The settlement of disputes among groups whose grievances are so great they are willing to die rather than accept impositions from others, are a fact of life. As 11 September has shown us, we are vulnerable to unconventional attacks against civilians, within our own borders--this book is relevant and readable.

The core idea is that only organized nation-states that can command the loyalty and obedience of their citizens, are capable of preventing war and championing peace. The concepts of corporate peace and non-governmental peace are explicitly disavowed.

Legitimization and brutality are recurring themes in history--peace among nations occurs when mutual respect or fear legitimize the status quo, and incredible brutalities, including routine massacres of "infidel" civilians, occur when states fail to control themselves or their populations.

A major disruptive factor in today's world is the combination of educated but unemployed masses within the Arabian and Islamic nations, and the globalization of communications--but it is a one-way globalization, firehosing the Muslims with corporate consumerist visions and impositions, while a Muslim Press Service has yet to form. Individual states--one could suggest that the United States is among them--failing to nurture a clear definition of citizenship, and the requisite loyalties--are destined to suffer internal fragmentation and external attack.

Strong militaries are needed to win wars, but overt military intervention is not the route to a sustainable peace in today's complex environment--only diplomacy, cultural outreach, and mutually agreed consensus can create and sustain peace....this is the simple yet brutal message of this book, one our leaders have yet to grasp.

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Summary: A pocket guide to the history of political engineering
Review: This is barely more than a pamphlet-sized survey of world history, from a Eurocentric perspective if only because it aims to trace the roots of modern power underlying the basic paradigms of government and control. Certainly, when it comes to the lenses through which the world views the instruments of authority, the world is now in the grips of Europe's dubious gifts. This book is not so much about political science, although it repeatedly gives Kant, Hegel and others their due credit, as about political engineering: how the ideas of before, during, and after the Enlightenment were applied, and continue to be tried out, by the world powers. He pays particular attention to the revolution in how European people thought about what government means, from the inexorable impressions made by the French Revolution and Napoleon, through the rise of Prussia and the German and Italian nations, to the collapses of world order into the first and second world wars and the Cold War.

Naturally any reasonable thinker could deplore the sweeping generalizations inherent in any condensation of world history and its ideological signposts into 113 ridiculously short pages. Then again, the distillation is potent and leaves a powerful impression, difficult to refute.

Beginning with the American and French Revolutions, a number of different ideas began to be experimented with in alternative to the traditional aristocratic grip on power, with warfare a limited, almost mere game. The defense of such traditionalists fell under the umbrella of the Conservatives. Some of the alternatives, under the umbrellas of Nationalist, despite being radical in their inception, slowly inverted into alignment with the Conservatives, ultimately leading to the Nazis, while the variety of Liberal forces took their darkest form in the Soviets. The branch of Liberal ideological heirs to the American revolution, however, formed the root of the educated professional class who have risen to cross national boundaries in their common, rational search for peace, and form the best hope of peace actually reigning among nations: "A genuine global transnational community with common values and a common language... Does not this at last provide a firm foundation on which the architects of peace can now at last build a new world order?" (pp. 108-09)

Modern, liberal democracy is no cure-all, however: in much of the world, "Capitalism, or the rule of the market, is effective only when practised by communities where there already exist stable civil societies held together by efficient bureaucracies and common moral values, conditions that the market itself is powerless to create. Democratic elections have often had the effect of destroying such social cohesion as already existed." Echoing Fareed Zakaria, it's hard not to take a second look at this conjecture given today's events.

The greatest remaining enemies to peace in our age, after the Cold War, are identified as religious/dogmatic scholars and unemployment - providing a toxic mix of boredom and its worst exploitation - another telling diagnosis from before 9-11. "There is something about rational order that will always leave some people, especially the energetic youth, deeply and perhaps rightly dissatisfied. ...Militant nationalist movements or conspiratorial radical ones provide excellent outlets for boredom." (pp. 112-13) Even allowing for the rightly dissatisfied, though that is accurate as far as it applies, is terribly generous as applied to the world in general.

Sir Howard is not wanting of a solution: "The estblishment of a global peaceful order thus depends on the creation of a world community sharing the characteristics that make possible domestic order, and this will require the widest possible diffusion of those characteristics by the societies that already possess them." As for those characteristics, going beyond institutions and organizations to include cultural dispositions, "Their creation and operation require at the very least the existence of a transnational elite that not only shares the same cultural norms but can render those norms acceptable within their own societies and can where necessary persuade their colleagues to agree to the modifications necessary to make them acceptable." (p. 105) Peace and democratic freedoms cannot merely be imposed from outside; they must be made to evolve palatably from within.

In the end, Howard is pragmatic but optimistic: On one hand, "Peace, as we have seen, is not an order natural to mankind: it is artificial, intricate and highly volatile." On the other hand, "whatever else may happen, 'a seed of enlightenment' will always survive." And hopefully, after all, continue to grow.

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Summary: Another wonderful book from Michael Howard
Review: This is,without question,my favorite book from Michael Howard. The book is under 100 pages and is very easy to understand. The ideas presente in this book are truly enlightening. Everyone should read this book! In a world where violence and war is becoming more acceptable, this book will offer a perspective that can give us hope of achieving piece. I have nothing negative to say about this book. It's worth twice the amount of what it cost. I would even go as far as saying you can't put a price on this book. In short,read this book!