Tokens of Power - Rethinking War

What motivates going to war? This book reexamines how leaders make decisions based on appearances of power over military reality.

List of contents

1. The ambiguity of military planning; 2. The measurement of military power; 3. Military strategy and the lessons of history; 4. Great Power competition and the cause of war; 5. Planning for the First World War; 6. Tanks in the Second World War; 7. The Great Powers and nuclear weapons; 8. The construction of US Cold War interests; 9. Conclusion.

About the author

Ann Hironaka is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine. She studies war, politics, and the environment from a global perspective. Her book, Neverending Wars (2005), examined the intractable civil wars of the contemporary era and the role of the international community in perpetuating these conflicts. Her recent book, Greening the Globe (Cambridge, 2014), examined the historical emergence of the global environmental regime and its impact on national policy and environmental practices around the world.

Summary

Reexamining assumptions about why states go to war, this book presents an alternative narrative of military history about the motivations of state actors whose decisions are based not in military reality, but in a social construction of who is a 'Great Power' - leading to irrational plays for control and dominance.

Product details

• Authors: Ann Hironaka, Ann (University of California Hironaka, Hironaka Ann
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 06.03.2017
• EAN: 9781107175112
• ISBN: 978-1-107-17511-2
• No. of pages: 342
• Subjects: Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political education; HISTORY / Military / General, POLITICAL SCIENCE / International Relations / General, International Relations, Warfare and defence