(Source: OUP)
Oxford University
Press has published a book that aims to draw lessons from the Treaties of
Westphalia for the long wars in the Middle East today.
ABOUT THE BOOK
It was the
original forever war, which went on interminably, fuelled by religious
fanaticism, personal ambition, fear of hegemony, and communal suspicion. It
dragged in all the neighbouring powers. It was punctuated by repeated failed
ceasefires. It inflicted suffering beyond belief and generated waves of
refugees. No, this is not Syria today, but the Thirty Years' War (1618-48),
which turned Germany and much of central Europe into a disaster zone.
The Thirty
Years' War is often cited as a parallel in discussions of the Middle East. The
Peace of Westphalia, which ended the conflict in 1648, has featured strongly in
such discussions, usually with the observation that recent events in some parts
of the region have seen the collapse of ideas of state sovereignty--ideas that
supposedly originated with the 1648 settlement.
Axworthy, Milton
and Simms argue that the Westphalian treaties, far from enshrining state
sovereignty, in fact reconfigured and strengthened a structure for legal
resolution of disputes, and provided for intervention by outside guarantor
powers to uphold the peace settlement. This book argues that the history of Westphalia
may hold the key to resolving the new long wars in the Middle East today.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Patrick Milton is a postdoctoral research
fellow at Freie Universität Berlin, working on early modern Europe. Michael
Axworthy is Senior Lecturer at the University of Exeter and author, inter alia,
of Revolutionary Iran. Brendan Simms is Professor in the History of
International Relations, University of Cambridge and author, inter alia, of
Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy, 1453 to the Present.
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
Foreword
Prefaces:
Körber
Foundation
Federal Foreign
Office of Germany
Part I:
CHALLENGES
1. Introduction
2. Challenges
and Crises in the Middle East
Part II:
HISTORIES
3. From
Religious Peace to the Thirty Years War: Multiple Crises in Europe and the Holy
Roman Empire, 1555-1648
4. The Peace
Congress of Münster and Osnabrück (1643-1648) and the Westphalian Order
(1648-1806)
Part III:
SOLUTIONS
5. Parallels and
Analogies
6. Lessons for
the Middle East: Peacemaking mechanisms, Diplomatic techniques, and a new
Regional Order
More information
here
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