Cindy Vallar's Blog - Posts Tagged "enemies-of-all-humankind"

Enemies of All Humankind: On the Narrative Construction of Legitimate Violence in Anglo-American Modernity by Sonja Schillings

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The concept of hostis humani generis dates back to Cicero, when he used this phrase to describe pirates as the enemies of all humankind. What Schilling does in this latest volume in Darmouth’s Re-mapping the Transnational series is to show the evolution of this concept and the application and use of legitimate violence to defeat these enemies from when it was first applied to pirates up to today’s terrorists, particularly as it pertains to the growth and maturation of America.

The author divides the book into four parts and uses both fiction and non-fiction to showcase her argument.

Introduction
Part I. The Emperor and the Pirate: Legitimate Violence as a Modern Dilemma
1. Augustine of Hippo: The City of God
2. Charles Johnson: A General History of the Pyrates
3. Charles Ellms: The Pirates’ Own Book

Part II. Race, Space, and the Formation of the Hostis Humani Generis Constellation
4. Piratae and Praedones: The Racialization of Hostis Humani Generis
5. John Locke, William Blackstone, and the Invader in the State of Nature
6. Hostis Humani Generis and the American Historical Novel: James Fenimore Cooper’s The Deerslayer

Part III. The American Civilization Thesis: Internalizing the Other
7. The Frontier Thesis as a Third Model of Civilization
8. The Democratic Frontiersman and the Totalitarian Leviathan
9. Free Agency and the Pure Woman Paradox
10. The Foundational Pirata in Richard Wright’s Native Son

Part IV. “It Is Underneath Us”: The Planetary Zone in between as an American Dilemma
11. The Institutional Frontier: A New Type of Criminal
12. Who Is Innocent? The Later Cold War Years
13. Moshin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist and the War on Terror
Conclusion

The book also includes a list of abbreviations, end notes, an extensive list of the works cited, and an index.

Victims of violence rarely control what happens to them, but over time, especially in Western tradition, the idea of legitimate violence – the use of force to subdue aggression – has been employed to defend innocent targets. What Schilling does in this book is show how the theory of legitimate violence has developed and evolved over time; how discussions on hostis humani generis are and have been maintained throughout the history of the United States; and how the parameters of both have changed over the centuries to warrant the protection of new victims.

Who are the perpetrators who fall under the umbrella of hostis humani generis and against whom legitimate violence is permitted? The initial enemies were pirates, but the passage of time has also permitted slavers, torturers, and terrorists, as well as any group that commits crimes against humanity, to be so labeled. While the concept of hostis humani generis is actually a legal fiction, its close association to piracy often leads scholars to believe they must first understand the pirate in order to comprehend why such people warrant the labeling of enemies of all humankind. But Schilling disagrees with this belief for two reasons. First, the definition of “pirate” changed over time, and that flexibility introduces inconsistency into such an analysis. Secondly, other perpetrators of violence replaced pirates as such enemies. This is why she refers to hostis humani generis as a constellation, a group of people related by their violent acts against innocent people.

The first two parts of this study are of particular interest to those who study and read about pirates, although Barbary corsairs, Somali pirates, and comparisons to the sample texts in chapters two and three are mentioned elsewhere. In the first section, Schilling discusses the origin of hostis humani generis and Saint Augustine’s broadening of the concept. This constellation finally comes into its own in the 16th century as European countries extended their borders to include territories in the New World. The second section focuses more on the law and invaders such as the renegadoes from the Barbary States.

While many readers will clearly understand that some of the texts that are used here to support her argument fall definitively into either non-fiction or fiction, Schilling doesn’t clarify that Johnson’s A General History of the Pyrates and Ellms’ A Pirates’ Own Book are actually a mix of both. These two authors interwove facts with imagination to better capture their readers’ interest. Overall, Enemies of All Humankind is a thought-provoking, scholarly examination that will stimulate interesting discussion on a topic that has particular relevance not only to the study of the past, but also to global events unfolding every day in our own world.




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