James Q. Whitman, "The Verdict of Battle: The Law of Victory and the Making of Modern War"

Summary: In The Verdict of Battle: The Law of Victory and the Making of Modern War (Harvard University Press, 2012),  Yale Law School Professor James Q. Whitman dissects the law behind eighteenth century European land wars. Whitman's impressive attempt to sort out the intellectual path of the laws of war leaves us with a clearer understanding of the factors that narrowed the scope of destructive warfare in the 18th century.