Collateral Damage

Everyday on the news, we hear tallies of how many Iraqis were killed the previous day in America's current war in Iraq. Most of these victims are not soldiers, and have nothing to do with the war--they are just innocent civilians, caught in the cross-fire. They are the war's "collateral damage."

This book is a history of America's attempt to reconcile the atrocity of modern warfare, only realized after WWII and the development of the atomic bomb, with the idea that killing innocent civilians was off-limits and not justified to win a war. Conway-Lanz considers both policy makers' responses to the issues, as well as the on-going debate by the public on their perceptions of war violence against civilians, starting after WWII for the most complete examination of modern American discourse on this topic.