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Title: Civil Wars

Subtitle: A History in Ideas

Author: David Armitage

Narrator: Derek Perkins

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-07-17

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 13 votes

Genres: History, Military

Publisher's Summary:

A highly original history, tracing the least understood and most intractable form of organized human aggression from ancient Rome to the present day.

We think we know civil war when we see it. Yet ideas of what it is and what it isn't have a long and contested history, from its fraught origins in republican Rome to debates in early modern Europe to our present day. Defining the term is acutely political, for ideas about what makes a war "civil" often depend on whether one is a ruler or a rebel, victor or vanquished, sufferer or outsider. Calling a conflict a civil war can shape its outcome by determining whether outside powers choose to get involved or stand aside: From the American Revolution to the war in Iraq, pivotal decisions have depended on such shifts of perspective.

The age of civil war in the West may be over, but elsewhere in the last two decades it has exploded - from the Balkans to Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia, and Sri Lanka, and most recently Syria. And the language of civil war has burgeoned as democratic politics has become more violently fought. This book's unique perspective on the roots and dynamics of civil war, and on its shaping force in our conflict-ridden world, will be essential to the ongoing effort to grapple with this seemingly interminable problem.

Members Reviews:

bellum civile

This is an engaging and enlightening book. Dr. Armitage draws upon an impressively vast range of research and history to deliver a masterful (and empowering) analysis of civil war. I would describe the author's writing style as cogent, scholarly, well-organized, often amusing, and above all, animated with a deep knowledge and understanding of Western culture and history.

The writing is rich with literary and historical allusions, brimming with relevant quotations from the greatest minds, and bristling with the author's own energetic and compelling interpretations and study.

I want to include the following quotes for anyone interested in what the author is setting out to do with this book.

What he is not setting out to do and what he can do:

"It is not my aim to provide an overarching theory of civil war. Nor can I supply the missing treatise. What I can do as a historian is to uncover the origins of our present discontents, to explain why we remain so confused about civil war and why we refuse to look it in the face." (p.7)

More on what he sets out to do:

"Over the course of this book, I show that civil war is neither eternal nor inexplicable. I argue that the phenomenon is coterminous with its historical conception, from its fraught origins in republican Rome to its contested present and its likely no less confusing or controversial future. It has a history with an identifiable beginning, if not a discernible end. A historical treatment reveals the contingency of the phenomenon, contradicting those who claim its permanence and durability. It is my aim to show that what humans have invented, they may yet dismantle; that what intellectual will has enshrined, and equal effort of imaginative determination can dethrone." (p.