The Chemical Weapons Taboo

By Richard M. Price

Book Overview

Richard M. Price asks why, among all the ominous technologies of weaponry throughout the history of warfare, chemical weapons carry a special moral stigma. Something more seems to be at work than the predictable resistance people have expressed to any new weaponry, from the crossbow to nuclear bombs. Perceptions of chemical warfare as particularly abhorrent have been successfully institutionalized in international proscriptions and, Price suggests, understanding the sources of this success might shed light on other efforts at arms control.To explore the origins and meaning of the chemical weapons taboo, Price presents a series of case studies from World War I through the Gulf War of 1990-1991. He traces the moral arguments against gas warfare from the Hague Conferences at the turn of the century through negotiations for the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993. From the Italian invasion of Ethiopia to the war between Iran and Iraq, chemical weapons have been condemned as the "poor man's bomb." Drawing upon insights from Michel Foucault to explain the role of moral norms in an international arena rarely sensitive to such pressures, he focuses on the construction of and mutations in the refusal to condone chemical weapons.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801433061
• ISBN13: 9780801433061
• Release Date: June 1997
• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.3" x 9.2"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Highly recommended reading by nervegas.com

Richard Price writes a professional treatise on the perception of Chemical Weapons from WWI to current day. It is a profound work, and goes into refreshing details without the slightest redundancy with other works. The Chemical Weapons Taboo can be thought of as an original scholarly work.He clarifies many current day perceptions on Chemical Weapons by analyzing treaties and political decisions. Rather than rely on perfunctory assumptions of those treaties, he analyzes the committee notes and conduct of those treaties to show the conflict of ideas within their own context. Classically he addresses the taboo's of poisons, weapons of the weak, and other themes, showing the inconsistencies in a norm, and how they faulter in expalining the Chemical Weapons Taboo.Readers not familiar with the scholarly styles of contemporary writings in philosophy will find this a difficult book to digest. The vocabulary is not scientific/technical, but percise and demanding. Nonetheless, it is insightful on the processes of international law, conduct of states, and the historical era's that have influenced the current day "taboo."An intensely rewarding study (i.e., six-stars). By showing how the "taboo" was arrived at in Western societies, it is apparent that it is not a universally held notion.The author concludes that weapons are "political artifacts," not merely the inevitable consiquence of technology. A notion that many in the military-industial complex can concur with.

Not a novel or a fiction, but chilling, anyway!

This book offers the reader a wide perspective about chemical weapons and how they have been used in the past. As a historic reference, it is invaluable, and as a work that helps the reader imagine what could happen in the future, this is a must. Every person involved or worried about mass destructions weapons, must read and treasure this book.