A Philosophy of War

By: Frédéric Gros

Published by Verso Books, 2026-01-13

<b>War - what is it good for? The best-selling author of <i>A Philosophy of Walking</i>, Frédéric Gros returns with a book on this highly topical subject.</b><br><br>According to one wag, war ‘died in Hiroshima’ more than half a century ago. And yet it has never gone away.<br><br>When Russia invaded Ukraine, they said, it's the return of real war, with its atrocities, its horrors, its violence. But what is a <i>real </i>war? Was the violence we had been witnessing in of the war on terror, the implosion of Yugoslavia, Israel's destruction in the Middle East, or the war on women not <i>real</i> war?<br><br>By calling on the great political philosophers, from Plato to Marx, via Machiavelli and Hobbes, this book attempts to answer this question, along with a series of others: what is a just war? What moral forces are involved in a conflict? Does the state make war, or does war make the state? Finally, after exploring the meanings and stakes of the spectre of ‘total’ war, he tackles the ultimate question: <i>why war?</i>