In a context marked by an increasingly broad—and too often badly understood—use of just war language and concepts in a variety of academic fields, Davis Brown's The Sword, the Cross, and the Eagle offers a thoughtful and suggestive focusing of the just war idea by reference to its roots in Christian thought and ethics. The book then applies the resulting conception to three of the most important contemporary problems for the ethics of war: the questions of just rebellion, humanitarian intervention, and nuclear war. Its contributions on both the level of theory and practical application make it a substantive contribution to the ongoing debate over ethics and war, one that should be digested and taken seriously by anyone engaged with these issues.

Davis Brown distinguishes the Christian just war tradition, which values justice over peace, from the comparative perversities of modern international law, which appears to value peace over justice. This book makes a significant contribution to the literature in its attempt to reclaim the idea of a just, offensive war. The author makes use of the most important primary sources and elucidates that material in a reader-friendly way that cannot help but impress.