Foreword: The Boundaries of War
Abstract
For an author, there is only one thing more terrifying than the possibility of writing a book that no one will read. This, of course, is the possibility of writing a book that many people will read. Books, like children, make their own way out in the world. Once launched, they must succeed or fail on their own merits; it is too late to change them or protect them.
Every now and then, an author gets lucky: a book gets precisely the readers the author had wished for, readers who take a book seriously and engage with it in a manner that is both challenging and affirming, seeking to answer its unanswered questions, extend its arguments into new areas, and wrestle with what it leaves unresolved. For me, the participants in this Temple International & Comparative Law Journal book symposium are the dream readers every author hopes for, and I am grateful to all of them for their thoughtful responses to How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything.
How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything started out as a law review article in 2004. Over more than a decade, my thinking evolved and my original argument grew new roots and new tendrils, eventually turning into a book. The book tells two intertwined stories: one is a story about law, and one is a story about institutions.