Joseph de Maistre on War and Peace: Ritual and Realism

Abstract

The essay analyses the development of Joseph de Maistre’s ideas on war and peace. Commonly seen as advocating militarism and bloodshed, Maistre’s insights and propositions on the nature of war are in fact highly modern and original. As a witness to the European upheaval of 1792-1815, Maistre emphasizes the indeterminacy and unpredictability of modern war, and its irreducibility to a science or a doctrine. In order to regulate and restrain warfare, Maistre argues, it is necessary to cultivate public opinion, an elusive and difficult process which can only be sustained by informal cultural institutions. The essay also examines the legacy of Maistre’s ideas on war and peace in political thought.