Oliver O'Donovan.

"In this Christian moral analysis of the subject of de terrence Oliver O'Donovan has produced a work that in its freshness, contemporaneity, and closely focused ap-plication of theological reasoning is reminiscent of Paul Ramsey's War and the Christian Conscience. O'Donovan's conversation partners include Ramsey, to whom he ac-knowledges indebtedness, and several other contem-porary theological analysts of deterrence as well as rep resentatives of the tradition of political realism.

"In a way no other moralist has done, O'Donovan teases meaning out of the distinction between deterrence weapons and weapons for use, and he persuasively dem" onstrates the historical and thematic links between nu-clear deterrence theory and pacifism in the tradition of the utopian 'perpetual peace' theories of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: both proceed from the as-sumption, contrary to Christian eschatology as well as to practical reason, that bumanity has the power in its knowledge and technology to bring about an everlast-ing peace. Rather, O'Donovan argues, a theologically in-formed politics calls for the use of power to serve jus-tice, and thus to serve a peace that is humanly possible within history. This is a book for any person seriously concerned about the morality of deterrence.