Article Dans Une Revue (Compte-Rendu De Lecture) Perspectives on Politics Année : 2024

A Century of Anarchy? War, Normativity, and the Birth of Modern International Order. By Hendrick Simon. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024. 432p. £110.00 cloth.

Résumé

In his book, Simon uses the arguably “hard case” of the nineteenth century to offer a meticulously documented and sophistically argued re-examination of the ways in which post-Napoleonic Europe struggled with the notion of ius ad bellum. By examining a vast array of heterogeneous sources representing governmental, legal, historical, and philosophical perspectives, Simon effectively demonstrates the significant divergence of opinions regarding the circumstances under which states had the right to engage in warfare. This challenges the assumption that the nineteenth century represented the pinnacle of Realpolitik, characterized by the belief in the necessity of reckless state behavior in the absence of a coherent international legal framework. Furthermore, Simon asserts that the concept of an unrestricted ius ad bellum was devised by German legal scholars who sought to justify their country’s militaristic policies following the Franco-Prussian War. The deconstruction of the myth of an “anarchic” nineteenth-century international order enables Simon to restore, on the one hand, the empirical plurality of justifications of warfare and, on the other, to demonstrate how short-term political interests influenced intellectual and academic discourses.

Dates et versions

hal-04807105 , version 1 (27-11-2024)

Identifiants

Citer

Eric Sangar. A Century of Anarchy? War, Normativity, and the Birth of Modern International Order. By Hendrick Simon. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024. 432p. £110.00 cloth.. Perspectives on Politics, 2024, Perspectives on Politics, pp.1-2. ⟨10.1017/s1537592724001889⟩. ⟨hal-04807105⟩
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