A History of War: Aftermath, Reparations, Justice

In the penultimate episode of A History of War series hosted by Interintellect founder Anna Gát, we will explore reparations, reconstruction and redistribution – regeneration – and how countries both victorious or defeated deal with what comes after the fighting.

“What has come to light is neither nihilism nor cynicism, as one might have expected, but a quite extraordinary confusion over elementary questions of morality—as if an instinct in such matters were truly the last thing to be taken for granted in our time.”
― Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil

John Keegan argues that intelligence services don’t win wars, fighting does. Yet when you look around you, most of how our world today is organised into geographies, hierarchies of political and economic processes, is the result not directly of fighting but its aftermath: the treaties and war tribunals, the political backlash and chaos, a population fleeing, returning, traumatised, smarter. It’s as if the most important moment in Hamlet were Fortinbras’ arrival.

At this salon, we will talk about the shock or joy over the ruins, the various ways to count one’s losses, and heal – the new cities, political movements, welfare institutions arising after the destruction. The moral complications of “justice” and the evolution of the categories of “war crime”. We will talk about historical memory, and the legacy of the wars that live on in us and our stories, both collectively and personally.

I hope to see you there!

• https://voxeu.org/article/protestant-reformation-economic-institutions-and-development
• https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2020/cteq/two-women-vittorio-de-sica-1960/
• https://aeon.co/ideas/what-did-hannah-arendt-really-mean-by-the-banality-of-evil
• https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Birth-of-the-NHS/
• https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/10/how-communism-took-over-eastern-europe-after-world-war-ii/263938/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court
• https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2017/fall/remembering-vietnam
• https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/05/george-packer-pax-americana-richard-holbrooke/586042/

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