War, Peter Temes writes, is always wrong but sometimes necessary. With that principle at its center, this book offers a critical history of Just War thinking, beginning with ancient epics and extending through American responses to the terrorist attacks of September 11. Temes (Antioch New England Graduate School) presents material he used for courses on the moral principles of war that he taught at Harvard and the University of Chicago. He combines a tour of history about ideas of just war, with a personal meditation trying to connect those ideas with today's world.

Includes index.

"We go to war that we may have peace" -- The fundamental ideas of just war -- The Catholic vocabulary of war : the center and the fringe of Catholic just war doctrine -- Muslin and Jewish just war traditions : the center and the fringe -- The questions of sequence and scale -- Saying no and saying yes : protest and the integrity of language in times of war -- A just war theory for the twenty-first century -- Three concluding principles -- Afterword : on the second Gulf War.