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He locates the origins of the Western way of war in ancient Greece: for example, in the heroic ideals of Homer's Iliad. He then traces the development of this warrior spirit, moving from Rome's systemization of violence to encounters with such alternative ways of war as Sun Tzu's, the Islamic tradition, and Japan's kamikaze actions during World War II. This trajectory, he finds, ends in a crucial contemporary fault line: for the first time in history, war is no longer considered humankind's most revealing behaviour.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49568459620625,"sku":"GOR006960241","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1588261301.jpg?v=1751442731"},{"product_id":"british-defence-policy-in-the-1990-s-book-christopher-coker-9780080358116","title":"British Defence Policy in the 1990's","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49578386850065,"sku":"GOR013721212","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/008035811X.jpg?v=1750779140"},{"product_id":"can-war-be-eliminated-book-christopher-coker-9780745679235","title":"Can War be Eliminated?","description":"Throughout history, war seems to have had an iron grip on humanity. 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With insights from philosophy, cutting-edge scientific research and popular culture, Future War is a compelling and thought-provoking meditation on the shape of war to come.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49587732316433,"sku":"GOR008210861","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49732198924561,"sku":"NGR9781509502325","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50962188206353,"sku":"CIN1509502327G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51189228405009,"sku":"NIN9781509502325","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52431914172689,"sku":"NLS9781509502325","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1509502327.jpg?v=1772101754"},{"product_id":"warrior-geeks-book-christopher-coker-9781849042543","title":"Warrior Geeks","description":"Warrior Geeks examines how technology is transforming the way we think about and fight war, taking three major changes that are driving this process: cybernetic technologies that are folding soldiers into a cybernetic system that will allow the military to read their thoughts and emotions and mould them accordingly; the coexistence of men and robots in the battle-spaces of tomorrow; and the extent to which we may be able to re-engineer warriors through pharmacological manipulation. By referring back to the Greeks who defined the contours of war for us, Coker shows how we are in danger of losing touch with our humanity - the name we give not only to a species but the virtues we deem it to embody. The journey from Greeks to Geeks may be a painful one. War can only be rendered more humane if we stay in touch with the ancestors, yet unfortunately we are planning to subcontract our ethical choices to machines. 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Designed to be read before, during, and after touring, as well as by the armchair traveller, this is a book for anyone interested in Manitoulin Island's past, present, and future.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49646824947985,"sku":"GOR012621161","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52138698178833,"sku":"NLS9780333358344","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52734966890769,"sku":"NIN9780333358344","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0333358341.jpg?v=1751228448"},{"product_id":"rise-of-the-civilizational-state-book-christopher-coker-9781509534630","title":"The Rise of the Civilizational State","description":"In recent years culture has become the primary currency of politics – from the identity politics that characterized the 2016 American election to the pushback against Western universalism in much of the non-Western world.    Much less noticed is the rise of a new political entity, the civilizational state. In this pioneering book, the renowned political philosopher Christopher Coker looks in depth at two countries that now claim this title: Xi Jinping’s China and Vladimir Putin’s Russia. He also discusses the Islamic caliphate, a virtual and aspirational civilizational state that is unlikely to fade despite the recent setbacks suffered by ISIS. The civilizational state, he contends, is an idea whose time has come. For, while civilizations themselves may not clash, civilizational states appear to be set on challenging the rules of the international order that the West takes for granted. China seems anxious to revise them, Russia to break them, while Islamists would like to throw away the rule book altogether. 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From the Ancients to Artificial Intelligence, Why War? is an exhilarating tour d'horizon of humankind's propensity to warfare and its behavioural underpinnings, offering new ways of thinking about our species' unique and deadly preoccupation.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49738453745937,"sku":"NGR9781787383890","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49935503360273,"sku":"GOR013209913","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50332265677073,"sku":"GOR012189089","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/178738389X.jpg?v=1751184605"},{"product_id":"men-at-war-book-christopher-coker-9780199382972","title":"Men at War","description":"Since Achilles first stormed into our imagination, literature has introduced its readers to truly unforgettable martial characters. 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In Men at War Christopher Coker discusses some of the most famous of these fictional creations and their impact on our understanding of war and masculinity. Grouped into five archetypes - warriors, heroes, villains, survivors and victims - these characters range across 3000 years of history, through epic poems, the modern novel and one of the twentieth cen- tury's most famous film scripts. Great authors like Homer and Tolstoy show us aspects of reality invisible except through a literary lens, while fictional characters such as Achilles and Falstaff, Robert Jordan and Jack Aubrey, are not just larger than life; they are life's largeness - and this is why we seek them out. Although the Greeks knew that the lovers, wives and mothers of soldiers are the chief victims of battle, for the combatants, war is a masculine pursuit. 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And what are its functions--how does it survive and thrive by exploiting the features that define it as a species? These are the four questions of the Tinbergen Method for explaining animal behavior, developed by the Nobel Prizewinning Dutch ethologist Niko Tinbergen. This book contends that applying this method to war--which is unique to humans--can help us better understand why conflict is so resilient.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Christopher Coker explores these four questions of our past and present, and looks at our post-human future, assessing how far scientific advances in gene-editing, robotics and AI systems will de-center human agency. 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As war becomes ever more instrumentalized, so its existential dimension is fast being hollowed out. Technology is threatening the agency of the warrior and this volume paints a picture of early twenty-first century warfare, helping to explain why so many aspiring warriors are becoming disenchanted with their profession.   Written by a leading thinker on warfare, this book sets out to explain what makes an American Marine a ‘warrior’ and why suicide bombers, or Al Qaeda fighters, do not qualify for this title. This distinction is one of the central features of the current War on Terror – and one that justifies much more extensive discussion than it has so far received.  The Warrior Ethos will be of great interest to all students of military history, strategy, military sociology and war studies.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51002213925137,"sku":"NIN9780415424523","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51273378693393,"sku":"GOR006023146","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52475421753617,"sku":"NLS9780415424523","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0415424526.jpg?v=1751072076"},{"product_id":"ethics-and-war-in-the-21st-century-book-christopher-coker-9780415452809","title":"Ethics and War in the 21st Century","description":"This book explores the ethical implications of war in the contemporary world. 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With insights from philosophy, cutting-edge scientific research and popular culture, Future War is a compelling and thought-provoking meditation on the shape of war to come.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51189253112081,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51189254750481,"sku":"NIN9781509502318","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52476779954449,"sku":"NLS9781509502318","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1509502319.jpg?v=1750797071"},{"product_id":"warrior-geeks-book-christopher-coker-9780199327898","title":"Warrior Geeks","description":"Warrior Geeks examines how technology is transforming the way we think about and fight war, taking three major changes that are driving this process: cybernetic technologies that are folding soldiers into a cybernetic system that will allow the military to read their thoughts and emotions and mould them accordingly; the coexistence of men and robots in the battle-spaces of tomorrow; and the extent to which we may be able to re-engineer warriors through pharmacological manipulation. By referring back to the Greeks who defined the contours of war for us, Coker shows how we are in danger of losing touch with our humanity - the name we give not only to a species but the virtues we deem it to embody. The journey from Greeks to Geeks may be a painful one. War can only be rendered more humane if we stay in touch with the ancestors, yet unfortunately we are planning to subcontract our ethical choices to machines. 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This highly controversial and cutting-edge book asks whether the attempt to make war 'virtual' or 'virtuous' can succeed and whether the west is deluding itself (not its enemies) in thinking that war can ever be made more humane. Christopher Coker's radical conclusion is that Western humanitarian warfare is in fact an endgame as other non-Western societies will make sure it does not succeed. Eminently readable, this book combines theory with accounts by politicians and serving military personnel, alongside illuminating literary insights. 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Where the Alliance failed, however, was in taking hold where it counted most,in the European imagination. The second part addresses the present-day consciousness of both Europe and the United States as they prepare for the twenty-first century. In the final section, Coker examines two key questions: whether the West can escape the undertow of violence that marks the end of the millennium and whether the challenges from East Asia and the Islamic world are of such magnitude that the West will have to reinvent itself.Throughout, Coker draws on a wide-ranging discussion of Western culture to understand the changes that are taking place in the Western world. 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