Ideology is so powerful it makes us believe that war is rational, despite both its brutal means and its devastating ends. The power of ideology comes from its intimate relation to language: ideology recruits all semiotic modalities, but language is its engine-room. Drawing on Halliday’s linguistic theory – in particular, his account of the “semiotic big-bang” - this book explains the latent semiotic machinery of language on which ideology depends. The book illustrates the ideological power of language through a study of perhaps the most significant and consequential of our ideologies: those that enable us to legitimate, celebrate, even venerate war, at the same time that we abhor, denounce and proscribe violence. To do so, it makes use of large multi-register corpora (including the British National Corpus), and the reporting of the 2003 invasion of Iraq by Australian, US, European, and Asian news sources. Combining detailed text analysis with corpus linguistic methods, it provides an empirical analysis showing the astonishing reach of our ideologies of war and their profoundly covert and coercive power.

"Instead of proposing another theory of war, their goal is a more modest one of raising the theoretical consciousness of historians. Specifically, they argue that '1) ideology does influence theory, 2) historians do have ideologies as well as theories . . . about which they are not always conscious or consistent, and 3) we can better understand, compare, and evaluate what historians are saying when we comprehend their ideological and theoretical perspectives.' They attempt then, to classify historical interpretations of war according to their ideological/ theoretical orientations, however covert." --Perspective "Nelson and Olin .. . are concerned with enhancing history's social utility by advancing its capacity to produce generalizations that can explain or predict events and are subject to empirical testing. Their exploration of historical generalization focuses on an issue itself of the highest importance, the causes of war; but their aim is also to create a model for historical generalization applicable to other issues. They argue that to understand generalizations in history, one must recognize their roots in theory, and that historians' theories in turn proceed from their own ideologies. To demonstrate, they survey theories about the causes of war that have come out of conservative, liberal, and radical ideologies. . . . any historian will profit from this rigorous approach to the problem." --Choice "Learned and suggestive, this book clarifies much of what is already known, and points toward new ways of understanding."--Library Journal

The author characterizes this book as a "docu-story". As such, it is an exceptionally well-researched and skillfully written chronology of the history of Russia, the Soviet Union and the cold War. The work is unusual and unique. It is unusual because unlike most books of an historical nature, it is free-flowing and not tightly structured. It is unique because it is written with considerable input from the author's personal experiences interwoven with perceptions and anecdotal observations. The work is Assertive: "I have no doubt that there was Cold War. I fought in it." (The Author); Candid: "Stalin is an unconscionable dictator, but I liked the little son-of-a-bitch." (Truman); Provocative: "Truman is worthless." (Stalin); and Challenging: "Why not set a goal just between the two of us let's find a practical way to solve our critical issues." (Reagan) and "we can set a specific agenda for how to straighten-out Soviet-American relations." (Gorbachev). Finally, it is Cautionary: "The world has become in many respects a safer place Unfortunately, it is also still a dangerous place, fraught with uncertainty." (Commander-in-Chief, US Strategic Command) and: "The missile force is in the same state of readiness as ten years ago. My men and my missiles are always ready." (General of the Army, Igor Sergeyev, Republic of Russia.)

The fundamental aims of this book are two: to explore the interaction between religion and secular society in the formation as well as the dissolution of just war doctrine; and to investigate just war doctrine as an ideological pattern of thought, expressive of a greater ideology. The author reconstructs the development of classic just war doctrine, showing it to be a product of secular and religious forces. From it he traces the growth of the doctrines of holy war and of modern just war. He demonstrates that the blending of two distinct traditions in the late Middle Ages has its counterpart in the century following the Reformation. The secularized just war doctrine exemplified in the writings of Grotius, Locke, and Vattel are related to the problems of war in our time. Originally published in 1975. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Ideals and Ideologies: A Reader is a comprehensive compilation of classic and original readings representing all of the major 'isms'. It offers students a generous sampling of key thinkers in different ideological traditions and places them in their historical and political contexts. Used on its own or with Political Ideologies and the Democratic Ideal, the title accounts for the different ways people use ideology and conveys the ongoing importance of ideas in politics. NEW TO THIS EDITION Paul Krugman, "The Conscience of a Liberal" (A distinguished Nobel Laureate’s defense of liberalism as a kind of rational conservatism, inasmuch as it seeks to conserve the gains and reforms of the New Deal and the Great Society – Social Security, Medicare, minority voting rights, environmental protection, and more.) Robert George, et al., "Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience" (The authors and signers of this 2009 declaration contend that the secularizing of America has gone too far and that Christians must work to reverse this trend.) Bernie Sanders, "On Democratic Socialism in the United States" (The fiery former candidate for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, who calls himself a "democratic socialist," offers an unapologetic defense of his creed.) bell hooks, "Feminism is for Everybody" (A distinguished feminist theorist and author argues that feminism isn’t only for or about women, but benefits everyone.) Val Plumwood, "Feminism and the Mastery Nature" (An eminent Australian ecofeminist emphasizes what feminists bring to the debate over human beings’ role and relationship with nature.) Vine Deloria, Jr., "On Liberation" (A prominent Native American author and thinker outlines his vision of native people’s liberation.) Pope Francis, "Laudato Si’: On Care for our Common Home" (The current Pope’s pleas for Christians and others to address climate change and other environmental issues.) Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, "Declaration of a Caliphate" (The radical Islamist leader or caliph of Islamic State [ISIS] announces the creation of a spiritual and geographic home for all "true" Muslims.)

This book combines well-known theoretical elements of various disciplines to form a broad picture of the role of ideologies in conflicts, in particular "the supply and demand side" of the ideological market: namely, why individuals choose particular ideologies and how radical groups, and organizations use them to address individuals' specific needs for the purpose of recruitment. This allows better understanding of the socio-psychological dynamics of social conflicts--why adopting particular ideologies is reasonable given certain socio-economic conditions; why individuals stick to destructive ideologies; and why they embrace major personal risks to join radical groups and advance the goals of these groups.

This book opens new perspectives into the Cold War ideological confrontations. Using Austria and Finland as an example, it shows how the Cold War battles for the hearts and minds of the people also influenced policies in countries that wished to stay outside the conflict. Following the model of older European neutrals, Austria and Finland sought to combine neutrality with democracy. The combination was eagerly challenged by ideological Cold Warriors on both sides of the divide and questioned at home too. Was neutrality risking the neutrals’ commitment to democracy, or did the commitment to the western type of democracy threaten their commitment to neutrality? Confronting these doubts grew into an organic part of practicing neutrality in the Cold War world. The neutrals needed to be exceptionally clear regarding the ideological foundations of their neutrality. Successful neutrality required a great deal of conceptual consistence and domestic unanimity. None of this was pre-given in Austria or Finland. However, in the model of Switzerland and Sweden, (armed) neutrality was systematically integrated with the official state ideology and promoted as a part of national identity. Legacies of these policies outlived the end of the Cold War.

Twentieth-century Southeastern Europe endured three, separate decades of international and civil war, and was marred in forced migration and wrenching systematic changes. This book is the result of a year-long project by the Open Society Institute to examine and reappraise this tumultuous century. A cohort of young scholars with backgrounds in history, anthropology, political science, and comparative literature were brought together for this undertaking. The studies invite attention to fascism, socialism, and liberalism as well as nationalism and Communism. While most chapters deal with war and confrontation, they focus rather on the remembrance of such conflicts in shaping today's ideology and national identity.

How do leaders perceive threat levels in world politics, and what effects do those perceptions have on policy choices? Mark L. Haas focuses on how ideology shapes perception. He does not delineate the content of particular ideologies, but rather the degree of difference among them. Degree of ideological difference is, he believes, the crucial factor as leaders decide which nations threaten and which bolster their state's security and their own domestic power. These threat perceptions will in turn impel leaders to make particular foreign-policy choices. Haas examines great-power relations in five periods: the 1790s in Europe, the Concert of Europe (1815-1848), the 1930s in Europe, Sino-Soviet relations from 1949 to 1960, and the end of the Cold War. In each case he finds a clear relationship between the degree of ideological differences that divided state leaders and those leaders' perceptions of threat level (and so of appropriate foreign-policy choices). These relationships held in most cases, regardless of the nature of the ideologies in question, the offense-defense balance, and changes in the international distribution of power.