Herbert Butterfield, Christianity, and International Law

Abstract

A recent article by the economist Samuel Brittan in The Financial Times was entitled Make the world safe from crusaders. In his article, Mr. Brittan discussed one of the two books that most influenced him as a student. That book was Christianity, Diplomacy and War, and its author, Sir Herbert Butterfield, was one of the most eminent British historians of the twentieth century. Brittan noted that it was deeply regrettable that Butterfield's book seems to have passed into oblivion... For there is no better antidote to the fantasies of the American neo-conservatives or the European liberal imperialists. Brittan is exactly right. Butterfield's work on the subjects of diplomacy and war, and the relationships of both to Christianity, deserves to be recollected, pondered and evaluated.