March 8, 2007

MINNEAPOLIS – In the newly released The Horrors We Bless: Rethinking the Just-War Legacy, Daniel C. Maguire asks some important questions. Is war inevitable? Is it so woven into the fabric of our being that it always was and always will be?

"Early Christians," says Maguire, "were unanimous in opposing this view." They didn't see war as normal but an outrage and even a sacrilege. Maguire argues that later Christians succumbed to the supposed "normalcy" of war and developed what later became known as the "just-war theory," which was actually devised as a deterrent to the rush to war.

In this provocative and helpful book, Maguire proposes that state-sponsored violence can only be justified in a community context with legal and internationally enforceable restrictions comparable to the restraints we put upon our police. This understanding of war would put an end to "vigilante war" practiced by Adolph Hitler and others as well as the "preemptive war" policy currently emerging in America. Maguire's proposal brings clarity and hope to the conversation about war in contemporary times.

Contents

1. What Is War?
2. The Strengths and Weaknesses of Just-War Theory
3. War: Is It Necessary?
4. Violence: Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby?

Features

• Includes thoughtful quotes about war from many historical and contemporary sources

• Includes reflection and discussion questions for individual or small group use

Daniel C. Maguire is Professor of Ethics at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Among his many books are A Moral Creed for All Christians (2005), Sacred Energies: When the World's Religions Sit Down to Talk about the Future (2000) and Sacred Choices: The Right to Contraception and Abortion in Ten World Religions (2001).

"This slim book is a work that every American should read, whether blue state or red state. Democrat or Republican, Christian or non, Catholic or Protestant, conservative or progressive-the only requirement being that the reader be rational enough to recognize stupidity." – A. Regina Schulte, in Corpus

The Horrors We Bless: Rethinking the Just-War Legacy, By Daniel C. Maguire, Item Number: 978-0-8006-3897-9, Details: 4.5" X 7," paperback, 144 pages, Price: $7.00, Publisher: Fortress Press.

To order The Horrors We Bless: Rethinking the Just-War Legacy please call Fortress Press at 1-800-328-4648 or visit the Web site at http://www.fortresspress.com/.

Fortress Press