Rs 100

VOLUME XLII NUMBER 4 APRIL 2018

The Book Review / April 2018 11

 Contents

Govindan Nair River Of Life, River Of Death: The Ganges And India’s Future
Editors by Victor Mallet 4
Chandra Chari Uma Iyengar Fatima Rizvi The Meaning Of Civilisation: Essays On Culture, Religion And Politics
Consultant Editor Adnan Farooqui by Naguib Mahfouz, Alan Byrne and Russell Harris 5
Sabyasachi Dasgupta A Republic In The Making: India In The 1950s by Gyanesh Kudaisiya 7
Editorial Advisory Board Moggallan Bharti Dalits And The Making Of Modern India by Chinnaiah Jangam 9
Romila Thapar
Girish Karnad Aratrika Das Will To Argue: Studies In Late Colonial And Postcolonial Controversies
Ritu Menon by Sumanyu Satpathy 10
Chitra Narayanan
T.C.A. Srinivasa Raghavan V Suryanarayan Saga Of Kalpathy: The Story Of Palghat Iyers by M.K. Das 13
Nabanipa Bhattacharjee What Happened To The Bhadralok by Parimal Ghosh 15
SUBSCRIPTION RATES
Single Issue: Rs. 100 Amir Ali Philosophy In The Islamic World: A History Of Islamic Philosophy
Annual Subscription (12 Issues) Without Any Gaps by Peter Adamson 17
Individual: Rs. 1500 / $75 / £50 Arun Viswanathan War: An Enquiry by A.C. Grayling 19
Institutional: Rs. 2500 / $100 / £60
(inclusive of bank charges and postage) Suvrat Raju Neighbours In Arms: An American Senator’s Quest For Disarmament In A
Nuclear Subcontinent by Larry Pressler 20
Life Donors: Rs. 10,000 and above
Abhishek Mishra Another South Asia! edited by Devnath Pathak 21
ADVERTISEMENT MANAGER Ali Ahmed Indian National Security by Chris Ogden 23
Geeta Parameswaran C Matthew Joseph The Impact Of The Afghan-Soviet War On Pakistan by Imrana Begum 24
gita.parameswaran@gmail.com
Ajay Darshan Behera The Faltering State: Pakistan’s Internal Security Landscape by Tariq Khosa 26
WEBSITE MANAGER
Rukmani Gupta Thirteen Months In China: An Annotated Translation Of Thakur
Prasanta Nayak
prasanta.nayak@gmail.com Gadhadhar Singh’s Chîn Me Terah Mâs edited and translated by
thebookreview@defindia.org Anand A. Yang, Kamal Sheel and Ranjana Sheel 28
Shyamala A Narayan Practical Literary Criticism: An Indian Take by DS Rao 29
COMPUTER INPUTS, DESIGN
AND LAYOUT Semeen Ali Parisaranitisatakam: A Century Of Verses On Environmental Ethics
Marianus Kerketta by Mangesh Venkatesh Nadkarni; Little Friend by K Ramesh;
kerketta.marianus5@gmail.com No Rhyme But Reason! by Palle Krishna Rao; Nimmah’s Lonely Man
by Sanjiv Bhatla; This Summer And That Summer by Sanjeev Sethi;
Please Address All Mail To: Ecdysis by Medha Singh; Clawing Into Water’s Skin by MK Ajay;
The Book Review Literary Trust
239, Vasant Enclave Architecture Of Flesh by N. Ravi Shanker (RaSh); Letters To Namdeo
New Delhi 110 057 Dhasal by Chandramohan S; Exiles Always: Poems From Other
Telephone: Geographies by Subhash Misra; Banaras And The Other by Ashwani
91-11-41034635 Kumar; The Homing Bird by Bashabi Fraser; Swimming With Whales
9650302832 / 9811702695 by Yogesh Patel; Capitals: A Poetry Anthology edited by Abhay K. 30
Rachna Joshi Mirabai: Ecstatic Poems versions by Robert Bly and Jane Hirshfield 32
Website:
www.thebookreviewindia.org Nikhil Kumar Sair-ul-Manazil by Sangin Beg 33
Sita Sundar Ram The Jaiminiya Mahabharata Mairavaaacarita; Sahasramukharava-
email:
chandrachari44@gmail.com nacaritam: A Critical Edition With English Translation From The
uma.iyengar@gmail.com Granthascript, Volumes I And II by Pradip Bhattacharya and
Advisory Board Founder Members Shekhar Kumar Sen; The Mahabharata Of Vyasa, Book XII: The
K.R. Narayanan Complete Santiparva Part 2: Moksha Dharma translated from
S. Gopal the original Sanskrit by Pradip Bhattacharya 36
Nikhil Chakravartty
Raja Ramanna Purnachandra Naik Just One Word: Short Stories by Bama 37
Meenakshi Mukherjee
K.N. Raj Anjali Deshpande Forbidden Desires by Madhuri Banerjee 38

The Book Review is a non-political, ideologically non-partisan journal which tries to reflect all shades of intellectual opinions and ideas. The views of the reviewers
and authors writing for the journal are their own. All reviews and articles published in The Book Review are exclusive to the journal and may not be reprinted
without the prior permission of the editors.
Published by Chandra Chari for The Book Review Literary Trust, 239 Vasant Enclave, New Delhi 110057. Printed at National Printers, B-56, Naraina Industrial Area Phase-II, New Delhi 110028

The Book Review / April 2018 3

Why Wars Happen
Arun Viswanathan
WAR: AN ENQUIRY
By A.C. Grayling
Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2017, pp. xv+268, $26.00
I
n 2006, AC Grayling, a well known and
respected British philosopher stirred up
a lot of discussion with his book Among
the Dead Cities: Was the Allied Bombing of Ci-
vilians in World War Two a Necessity or a
Crime? The book delved into the aerial bomb-
ing of German cities by the British and the
Americans. Grayling termed the bombing
as a crime against humanity as he saw it as
causing disproportionate harm to civilians,
being militarily ineffective in defeating the
Axis Powers. Whether one agrees with his
conclusion or not is a matter of a separate
debate, nevertheless, it is very clear that Gray-
ling has no issues with stating his convic-
tions without much regard for any contro-
versy it might create.
AC Grayling’s latest book,War: An En-
quiry, that is under review provides an inter-
esting analysis of the history, causes and the
morality of war. The underlying question that
the book seeks to answer is why wars hap-
pen.
A very well written and argued book, the
author provides an interesting and concise
summary of wars from 2500 BC to modern
times. The author also focuses on the im-
pact of technology on War and seeks to high-
light how technology has led to war becom-
ing more and more lethal. The author uses
the examples such as the use of chariot and
composite bow in tandem which he argues
brought about ‘changes in the organisation
or militaries and society’ (p. 23). This was
probably the earliest example of how tech-
nology became a potent fighting tool which
extended the reach of armies.
Grayling also provides a bird’s eye view
of various thinkers, theorists and practitio-
ners who have thought and written about
the philosophy, methods and tactics of war
and warfare. This section is especially useful
as an introduction to theories of war and the
manner in which theorists differed from each
other, yet built upon each other’s ideas. Gray-
ling also brings forth the actual impact of
theories on conduct of warfare. A very good
example that is cited by the author is the
Prussian King Helmuth von Moltke the
Elder adopting Carl von Clausewitz’s pre-
scriptions and reforming the Prussian mili-
tary.
Technological evolution impacted the
thinking of various military theorists. One
such instance was the advent of fighter air-
craft which shaped the thinking of Italian
military officer Gulio Douhet and later Brit-
ish military officer Sir Hugh Trenchard on
the importance of aerial assets on warfare es-
pecially bombing of civilian targets and force
government to sue for peace (p. 96). The
author also delves into the moral arguments
that theories and war in general have to
grapple with. He cites the instance of how
Hugh Trenchard’s arguments for attacking
of civilians and cities to break the enemy’s
morale ran into trouble given the ethical di-
lemma it put the British military and its lead-
ership into. The advent of nuclear weapons
presented a similar dilemma for military
planners and theorists.
Grayling also discusses other ethical di-
lemmas in the conduct of War especially fo-
cussing on the impact of technology on war-
fare. The book discusses at length the im-
pact on war from terrorism to unmanned
drones to lethal autonomous weapons. Gray-
ling highlights the ethical issues in drone
operators sitting in safe faraway locations tar-
geting enemies whom they cannot see nor
have any real opportunity to retaliate against.
War and making life and death decisions in
such cases is not very different from playing
video games in one’s living room. Though
the use of drones and such technologies does
save soldiers’ lives by not putting them in
harm’s way, the ethical and moral dilemmas
they pose are multifarious. The author ar-
gues that such use of technology results in
trivialization of the whole combat and the
resultant loss of lives.
Grayling also discusses Lethal Autono-
mous Weapons and how this removes the
humans from the decision making loop. The
author rightly points out concerns in using
artificial intelligence in the conduct of war-
fare and its impact on humanitarian law in
conflict which is built upon the idea of pro-
portionality of response, necessity of a par-
ticular action and distinguishing combatants
and non-combatants.
The book also deals with the important
question of the causes and effects of wars.
Grayling argues against those who bat in
favour of human beings having a genetic pre-
disposition to war. He argues to the contrary
stating that this could not be true as hu-
mans have built nations and civilizations on
the bedrock of cooperation.
In his search for the answer to the larger
question as to why wars happen Grayling
argues that the answer can be found in cul-
tural reasons. The author showing his opti-
mistic streak states, ‘war is a cultural, not a
genetic phenomenon, and is or at the least
should be under the control of human
choice. And this in turn would mean that
there is a genuine possibility of removing war
from human interaction.’ Further Grayling
argues for creation of interdependences in
the economic sphere and interconnections
in the political sphere against war. Integra-
tion, he argues is a good solution to prevent-
ing War. However, here the author is on a
weak wicket. As we witnessed in the First
World War, a highly economically integrated
Europe did not prevent the outbreak of the
Great War which some would argue was in-
evitable.
In conclusion Grayling argues for ratio-
nal judgement while taking the decision to
begin a war. He states that such a decision
should not be taken lightly and argues against
initiation of war until and unless it is com-
pletely unavoidable. In the tumultuous times
that we are living through—where tweets
have the potential to spark off a major catas-
trophe—such sage advice is more than nec-
essary. One does hope that world leaders ac-
tually pay heed to such advice.
Arun Vishwanathan teaches at the School of In-
ternational Studies, Central University of Gujarat,
Gandhinagar.
The Book Review / April 2018 19