The 20th century has ended as it began. A deeply divided world is besieged by nagging questions and beset by the threat of violence. What will be the future of war? Has it been abolished? Is it simply redundant or has it undergone a grim metamorphosis? Just the same questions were being asked 100 years ago, urgently, by world leaders. Invited jointly by Queen Wilhelmina of The Netherlands and Tsar Nicolas II the last Tsar they gathered at The Hague Peace Conference in 1899 to try to abolish war. They failed, just as the Tsar's chief adviser said that they would. Jan Bloch was a Polish railway tycoon, philanthropist and polymath. He predicted with chilling accuracy the nature of the World War shortly to come, just as he predicted that he would not be believed.;On the occasion of its centenary, his great book, The Future of War, is re-examined in this book of the same name. A group of the most eminent thinkers in modern security studies have revisited Bloch's questions in light of the experience of Bloch's bloody century. This deeply penetrating and reflective book engages key issues upon which the choices of peace and war will depend in the 21st century. The text should be of interest to all students of international relations, security studies, modern social and political sciences. It is also intended a primer for world political leaders who today carry the responsibilities of those who gathered and failed at The Hague Peace Conference in 1899. The authors are: Mohammed Ayoob; Christoph Bertram; Carl Bildt; Jutta Birmele; Jan Bloch (in conversation with William Stead); Martin van Creveld; Francis Deng; Peter van den Dungen; Lawrence Freedman; Pierre Hassner; John Keegan; Klaus-Peter Klaiber; Peter Kooijmans; Edward Luttwak; Gwyn Prins; General Sir Michael Rose; Hylke Tromp; Andrei Werner; HRH Prince Willem-Alexander, The Prince of Orange.
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