War and Modernity

Written by one of Europe's leading social theorists, this booktakes up the claims of modernity and confronts them with a starkreality: the ongoing proliferation of war. How can contemporarysocial and political thought come to terms with this apparentfailure of modernity? Throughout the 20th century the globalstruggle of ideologies put paid to the dream that wars were somehowthe relic of a bygone, unenlightened age. But now in the aftermathof the Cold War era, how are we to account for the persistence ofwar and state violence?





Drawing on a wide range of material, from World War I and Vietnamto the Gulf War and the conflicts in the Balkans, Joas engages withcurrent debates in the sociology and politics of war and developshis own distinctive line of argument concerning the role of warfarein modern societies. He aligns himself with figures such as Giddensand Mann in the attempt to establish a new and non-functionalisttheory of social change.





This compelling and timely study confronts one of the greatparadoxes of our era, and Joas's book is a substantial contributiontowards a new historico-sociological perspectiveon the twentiethcentury. It will be of particular interest to students and scholarsof sociology and politics, and will appeal to anyone who haspuzzled over the persistence of modern war, and the limits ofenlightenment as an historical force.