David Armitage, "Civil Wars"

The first civil wars on record erupted in republican Rome, and such conflicts are with us still, as are debates about just what “civil war” means. Armitage, the Lloyd C. Blankfein Professor of History at Harvard and author of many works of political theory including Foundations of Modern International Thought and The Declaration of Independence: A Global History, investigates how civil wars have been defined throughout history. He shows how rulers and subversives disagree on the nature of these struggles, and how “revolution” suggests objectives different from those of a “rebellion,” including signaling to outsiders whether or not to consider intervening. He draws on recent conflicts in the Balkans, Somalia, Rwanda, and Syria to illustrate the myriad forms of civil war.

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Produced by Tom Warren