Three essays in which philosopher Étienne Balibar questions the notion of war through the thinking of Simone Weil, Carl von Clausewitz, and Karl Marx, as well as the current geopolitical situation.
Sur la guerre [On War], the first volume in the "Constellations" series of short essays, contains three reflections by Étienne Balibar on war, which are highly relevant today. The book brings together an analysis of Simone Weil and her reinterpretation of Homer's Iliad, a lengthy study examining the links between Carl von Clausewitz's strategic thinking and its Marxist readings (by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Mao), and a commentary on the contemporary geopolitical situation and the war in Ukraine.
These texts show that an interpretation of war—as a historically decisive event—must draw on poetry, philosophy, and politics to raise a fundamentally ethical question: our capacity for action in the face of radical evil. War calls upon our citizenship and civility, our ability to "govern" ourselves, questioning how these issues are put to the test in a state of emergency that has become normalized today.
Sur la guerre is published in a hardcover edition with silver foil stamp print and includes illustrations inspired by antique sculptures.
Étienne Balibar (born in 1942 in Avallon, France), philosopher and former professor at the universities of Paris-Nanterre, UC Irvine, Columbia (New York), and Kingston (London), is one of the leading international figures in "post-Marxism."
