Women and War
9780226206264
Women and War
Jean Elshtain examines how the myths of Man as "Just Warrior" and Woman as "Beautiful Soul" serve to recreate and secure women’s social position as noncombatants and men’s identity as warriors. Elshtain demonstrates how these myths are undermined by the reality of female bellicosity and sacrificial male love, as well as the moral imperatives of just wars.
318 pages | 3 halftones | 5-1/4 x 8 | © 1995
History: General History
Political Science: Political Behavior and Public Opinion
Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Beautiful Souls/Just Warriors: The Seduction of War
1: Not-a-Soldier’s Story: An Exemplary Tale
A Child of the 1950s: Images of War and Martyrdom
The Growing Up of a Political Theorist
2: The Discourse of War and Politics: From the Greeks to Today
Taming Homer’s Warrior: Plato and Aristotle
The Ideal Republic: Machiavelli and Rousseau
The Nation-State
The Revolutionary Alternative: Marx and Engels
The "Science" of War and Politics: International Relations Becomes an Academic Discipline
3: Exemplary Tales of Civic Virtue
Women and the Civil War
The First World War: "My Nation-State, of Thee I Shout"
4: The Attempt to Disarm Civic Virtue
The Christian Conundrum: From Pacifists to Reluctant Warriors
Just War, Holy War, and the Witness of Peace
Female Privatization: The Beautiful Soul
Implications of the Just-War Tradition
5: Women: The Ferocious Few/The Noncombatant Many
The Historic Cleavage
Female Group Violence
The Ferocious Few
The Noncombatant Many
6: Men: The Militant Many/The Pacific Few
The Militant Many
The Pacific Few
The Literature of War
Structures of Experience: The Good Soldier/The Good Mother
7: Neither Warriors nor Victims: Men, Women, and Civic Life
The Liberal Conscience
Uncertain Trumpet: Feminism’s War with War
Women as Warriors: "You’re in the Army Now"
Beyond War and Peace
Epilogue
Notes
Index
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Beautiful Souls/Just Warriors: The Seduction of War
1: Not-a-Soldier’s Story: An Exemplary Tale
A Child of the 1950s: Images of War and Martyrdom
The Growing Up of a Political Theorist
2: The Discourse of War and Politics: From the Greeks to Today
Taming Homer’s Warrior: Plato and Aristotle
The Ideal Republic: Machiavelli and Rousseau
The Nation-State
The Revolutionary Alternative: Marx and Engels
The "Science" of War and Politics: International Relations Becomes an Academic Discipline
3: Exemplary Tales of Civic Virtue
Women and the Civil War
The First World War: "My Nation-State, of Thee I Shout"
4: The Attempt to Disarm Civic Virtue
The Christian Conundrum: From Pacifists to Reluctant Warriors
Just War, Holy War, and the Witness of Peace
Female Privatization: The Beautiful Soul
Implications of the Just-War Tradition
5: Women: The Ferocious Few/The Noncombatant Many
The Historic Cleavage
Female Group Violence
The Ferocious Few
The Noncombatant Many
6: Men: The Militant Many/The Pacific Few
The Militant Many
The Pacific Few
The Literature of War
Structures of Experience: The Good Soldier/The Good Mother
7: Neither Warriors nor Victims: Men, Women, and Civic Life
The Liberal Conscience
Uncertain Trumpet: Feminism’s War with War
Women as Warriors: "You’re in the Army Now"
Beyond War and Peace
Epilogue
Notes
Index