Philip Bobbitt - Terror and Consent

Terror and Consent

In 2008 Knopf published Bobbitt's Terror and Consent: the Wars for the Twenty-first Century, which applied many of the ideas of The Shield of Achilles to the problems of wars on terror. Terror and Consent was on both the New York Times and the London Evening Standard’s best-seller lists and was widely reviewed. The front page of the New York Times Sunday Book Review called it, "quite simply the most profound book to have been written on the subject of American foreign policy since the attacks of 9/11 — indeed, since the end of the cold war." Among others, Senator John McCain praised the book as “the best book I’ve ever read on terrorism,” and Henry Kissinger called Bobbitt, “perhaps the most important political philosopher today.” Tony Blair wrote of Terror and Consent, “It may be written by an academic but it is actually required reading for political leaders.” David Cameron, the leader of the Tory party in the UK put it on a list of summer reading for his parliamentary colleagues in 2008. In Terror & Consent, Bobbitt argued that the only justification for warfare in the 21st century was to protect human rights.