Why read Preparing for War?

Book cover of Preparing for War: The Making of the Geneva Conventions

Book description

The 1949 Geneva Conventions are the most important rules for armed conflict ever formulated. To this day they continue to shape contemporary debates about regulating warfare, but their history is often misunderstood.

For most observers, the drafters behind these treaties were primarily motivated by liberal humanitarian principles and the shock…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Preparing for War as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Julia F. Irwin

Author

The 1949 Geneva Conventions are often viewed as a progressive and self-evident response to the horrors of the Second World War, but this book shows that their development was a highly contested and deeply politicized process.

I greatly appreciated the depth and rigor of the author’s research. By examining archival sources from ten countries and in multiple languages, van Dijk shows that the drafters of this landmark development in international humanitarian law had competing priorities and interests. The decisions and compromises they made in the 1940s shaped the future of warfare in profound ways.

In addition to teaching me about…

From Julia's list on The best books about the origins of modern humanitarianism and its consequences for the contemporary world.