"The Just War: An American Reflection on the Morality of War in Our Time" by Peter S. Temes

When is war acceptable? How should it be carried out? What, if any, are the moral rules for military force? Answering these and related questions has been the goal of just-war thinking since it was originally articulated by St. Augustine; its influence has transcended theology to inform many of today's conventions of international order. Both an intellectual history of just-war thought and a call for its deployment in considering America's current military engagements, this book functions simultaneously as primer and call to action (if not arms). Temes shows Christian, Jewish, and Islamic ideas of moral war to be fundamentally congrent, and draws on such secular thinkers as Cicero and Carl von Clausewitz to draw just-war thought out of the divinity schools and, he hopes, into the public moral vocabulary. Temes' philosophical synthesis is nuanced and impressive, particularly in viewing war as both deeply dehumanizing (as in modern industrial state warfare) and symbolically important (as in ancient warfare's celebration of individual courage and sacrifice).