Advance to Barbarism

Widely regarded as his most important and influential work, Advance to Barbarism was first published in 1948 (under the pen name "A. Jurist."), with a revised edition followed in 1953. It was issued in several languages, including Spanish and German. This eloquent work traces the evolution of warfare from primitive savagery to the rise of a "civilized" code of armed conflict that was first threatened in the US civil war, and again in the First World War, and was finally shattered during the Second World War. The ensuing "War Crimes Trials" at Nuremberg and Tokyo, and their more numerous and barbaric imitations in Communist-controlled Eastern Europe, Veale argues, established the perilous principle that "the most serious war crime is to be on the losing side.