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The Monopoly of Violence: Why Europeans Hate Going to War

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The Monopoly of Violence: Why Europeans Hate Going to War (Hardcover)

by James J. Sheehan (Author)

2.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

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Product details

Hardcover: 284 pages
Publisher: Faber and Faber; illustrated edition edition (17 Jan 2008)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0571220851
ISBN-13: 978-0571220854
Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.6 x 3.4 cm

Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 170,110 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Product Description
Since 1945, the European states which had previously glamorised their military elites, and made going to war the highest expression of patriotism, have renounced violence as a way of settling their disputes. Violence has been eclipsed as a tool of statesmen. This astonishing reversal is the subject of James Sheehan's masterly book. It is also a timely reminder of the differences between Europe and America, at a time when the USA is asserting its right and duty to make war for ideological or self-interested ends. And how Europeans will live in this dangerous, violent world is a question that becomes ever more urgent as the chaos in the Middle East affects the stability of societies with open frontiers and liberal traditions.

About the Author
James Sheehan served as President of the American Historical Association in 2005. He is Dickason Professor in the Humanities and Professor of History at Stanford University.

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Customer Reviews

3 Reviews

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4 star:		(1)
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2.7 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A supposedly fun thing I'll never do again, 5 May 2008

By	S. Matthews "Sean Matthews" (Mainz, Germany) - See all my reviews

There is a large, complicated and (as every small ad flogging a tenure application says) 'important' book to be written on the shift in the relationship between military and civil society in Europe in the last 100 years, both at the policy and the human level; its context, its causes and its consequences.

This isn't it. This is the sort of book that someone like Sheehan can knock off in the summer holidays, without breaking a sweat (the bibliography is larger than the endnotes). Sheehan tells us how attitudes changed, but precious little about why, beyond the obvious point that after having tried it a couple of times, it has gradually dawned on the european in the street that continental scale industrial-technological total war is a _bad thing_, and it peters out a bit even from that in the post-second world war period.

Maybe having documented the phenomenon, he can now analyse it (or get one of his students to do so). In the meantime, this was a disappointment.

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6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys, 16 Feb 2008

By	Charles Vasey (London, England) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

Sheehan considers the dramatic shift in public policy within Europe that took us from 1914 (with crowds in favour of war) to the present where it can be hard to get enough troops to patrol Afghanistan. Of course all such trends have individual counter-trends with the Falklands (for example) producing a dramatic but untypical return to the spirit of 1914 in the UK. During this period America went in almost the opposite direction to Europe passing from isolationism to being the world's policeman; but enduring difficult times after Vietnam.

There remain within Europe warrior nations and more pacifistic nations. The Danes were neutral in World War One, hardly fought in World War Two, but their troops fight doughtily in Afghanistan when their government permits.

I am not sure how much the concept of a pact between citizen and state has actually changed (chiefly because I don't know enough about how the men of 1914 actually felt) but Sheehan points out a trend that shows little evidence of change at present.

Perhaps it is the fate of all empires to teach their subjects the true cost of "glory".

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4 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Pardon?, 28 Mar 2008

By	William Podmore (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

Has the foolish author not heard of the Blair government? Wars against Serbia, Kosovo, Somalia, Iraq, Iraq again? Don't these count as wars? Has he not heard of the French army's post-1945 attacks on Madagascar, Algeria, Tunisia and Vietnam? Has he not heard of the British army's post-1945 attacks on Korea, Malaya, Kenya, Egypt, Indonesia, Oman, northern Ireland, Argentinian forces, Yugoslavia and Iraq? When an author starts from a position of redoubtable ignorance, his conclusions are really not worth the paper they are written on.

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