ABSTRACT
This book introduces the just war tradition by way of a set of essays on the key figures associated with it. It provides the reader with a sense of how just war thinking evolved over time, and how it might be understood as a tradition. The chapter seeks to expose him or her to the historical roots and contemporary significance of the terms and concepts that often arise when war is under discussion. The hope is that, by gaining a deeper knowledge of how just war ideas have developed over time the reader will be in a better position to interrogate and perhaps, with critical insights gained from this foray into the history of ideas, even refine his or her own views on the rights and wrongs of warfare. The perils associated with thinking about the ethics of war in light of the just war tradition are real, but they are also avoidable.
