war

After 1945, the geopolitical use of sport found a place in the alliances of the Cold War. Ideology and diplomacy slipped into every aspect of the practice of sports.

Arrests, torture, massacres: the Assad clan has been tormenting the Syrian people for the past 50 years. This major collective work provides conclusive evidence of the violence to which Europe turns a blind eye.

“Fixers”, or dragomans, are vital intermediaries and interpreters for both journalists and soldiers in hostile terrain, and play a central role in a network of relationships and transfers. In the Middle Ages they embodied the need for otherness, and continue to do so today.

The destructive potential of nuclear weapons makes states “responsible” and helps stave off a Third World War; the process of triggering the bomb is controlled; proliferation must be avoided, but our nuclear arsenal must be modernized. If we are to dispel the myths surrounding nuclear weapons, a debate is needed.

Targeted assassination campaigns seem increasingly well established as a newly prevalent way of war. Through a comparison between the United States and Israel’s practices of assassination, Amélie Férey analyses the discourses which legitimise this practice despite its apparent incompatibility with political liberalism.

Interactions between Native Americans and Europeans in the Great Lakes Region have been the subject of groundbreaking works in American history. But there was more to the story than previously thought, as D. Nichols underlines Lakes Indians’ effective forms of resistance and strategies of survival

Was the French Revolution bound to become authoritarian? Do revolutionary ideologies always lead to violence? Annie Jourdan’s book reconfigures mainstream narratives of the Revolution and provides an alternative interpretation of the ‘Reign of Terror’.

Should democratic states go to war? The first part of this interview with Michael Doyle is devoted to the definition of different intellectual traditions of liberalism, in particular Kant and Mill, in an attempt to examine the necessary conditions of democratic peace.

Why do we consider killing and letting someone die to be two different things? Why do we believe that a doctor who refuses to treat a terminally ill patient is doing anything less than administering a lethal substance? After all, the consequences are the same, and perhaps the moral status of these acts should be judged accordingly.

What if historians and cartoonists teamed up with each other? For such a partnership to work, one might choose to illustrate “great History.” Or, better yet, one can find inspiration in graphic investigations guided by a reasoning and based on new sources and original questions.

Launched over a century ago, the war on drugs has been a resounding failure. Not only has it increased trafficking, but it has also reinforced drug use and drug production while cracking down on drug users and peasant producers. The time has come to promote coherent projects of alternative development.

The Syrian civil war has entered its fourth year and continues to take a very heavy toll on the Syrian people. In his book on Bashar Al-Asad’s authoritarian regime, Souhaïl Belhadj shows how this conflict is rooted not in ethnic and religious identity, but in a profound social crisis.

Is the American government’s drone warfare a radical kind of manhunting, or just a military tactic that can be used for various ends, ranging from highly legitimate to barbarous?

World War Two marked the beginning of a new relationship between state and society in America. Turning away from a focus on regulation and welfare, the new state based its vastly extended authority on warfare. A study by James Sparrow points to an unexpected explanation for this sea change in traditionally anti-statist America: mass compliance.

The evolution of international criminal justice since the 1990s has spurred both scholarly study and controversy. Against those who bluntly denounce “victors’ justice” to the point of paving the way for negationism, a recent book takes an empirical approach to the question of the reception of the work of international courts and the effects of their decisions on the populations involved.

Is it possible, after a conflict or genocide, to deliver justice and build a new political order acceptable to all sides previously set on destroying each other? Christian Nadeau looks at recent conflicts in Rwanda and in the former Yugoslavia, among others, to lay down the foundations of a theory of transitional justice. In his view a successful transition to democracy has to be based on reparation and deliberation.

In his recent book devoted to the historiographical debate over the Great War, Christophe Prochasson explores the ongoing renegotiation of the forms of patriotic consent, as well as the blurring of boundaries between true and false and the manner in which the Republic was put to the test by the conflict.

Waiting for Godot: jewel of absurdist theatre or historical play? Valentin and Pierre Temkine topple the interpretation of this classic play by replacing it within the context of its creation. Their essay is drawing a lot of attention in Germany, despite being written in French, by Frenchmen, about a French play.