New publication: "Civilians at War: From the Fifteenth Century to the Present"

Book edited by Professor Gunner Lind, Saxo Institute. Museum Tusculanum Press, 2014.

We often think of war as creating two different kinds of people: soldiers and civilians. But hasn’t history taught us that this distinction is painfully nebulous?

The contributors to this volume, writing from different disciplinary vantages, address a number of important issues connected to the ways in which the social distinctions and divisions surrounding war—especially those that determine participation—play out across different historical and geographical settings.

Contextualizing the dichotomy of civilian and combatant against these larger complexities, this book offers a new understanding of the problematic middle ground that civilians occupy during wartime.

You can read more about the book and purchase it at the webpage of the publisher.

Modern conflict blurs the line between soldiers and civilians
Gunner Lind has recently written an analysis for the international research news website theconversation.com in which he demonstrates how the concepts “combatant” and “civilian” are challenged by present conflicts in Gaza, Iraq and Ukraine.

- ... it has been clear for a while that the formal delineation that breaks society down between military and civilian status has been blurring. War, after all, is no longer as organised as it once was – and the division between military and civilians no longer imposes a discipline on to violence as we would like, Gunner Lind states.

Read the analysis “Modern conflict blurs the line between soldiers and civilians” at theconversation.com