Making War on the World

Mark Shirk examines historical and contemporary state responses to transnational violence to develop a new account of the making of global orders. He considers a series of crises that plagued the state system: piracy in the eighteenth century, anarchist “propagandists of the deed” at the turn of the twentieth, and al-Qaeda in recent years.

Mark Shirk is visiting assistant professor of political science at Bucknell University.

Andrew Phillips, author of How the East Was Won: Barbarian Conquerors, Universal Conquest and the Making of Modern Asia:
Mark Shirk offers a brilliant new analysis of the crucial role violent nonstate actors have played in transforming practices of state sovereignty from the golden age of piracy to the war on terror. This book combines exciting theoretical innovation with fascinating historical empirics, as well as offering timely lessons for the likely future of today’s troubled liberal international order. Written in punchy prose and with a natural storyteller’s flair, Making War on the World is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding how transnational predators have so profoundly shaped both the modern state and the modern world.

Matthew Norton, University of Oregon:
Violations of the boundaries of established political orders can jar and shock us. Making War on the World vividly shows that transboundary actors like pirates, assassins, and terrorists are not weird aberrations in state-centric orders but reminders that drawing political boundaries always entails the creation of shadowy margins with disruptive potential.

Constance Bantman, author of The French Anarchists in London, 1880–1914: Exile and Transnationalism in the First Globalisation:
Making War on the World offers a thought-provoking interpretive framework and compelling insights to decipher episodes of political violence and their resolution. An important contribution to the literature on the surveillance state and the policing of radical social movements.

Jordan Branch, author of The Cartographic State: Maps, Territory, and the Origins of Sovereignty:
This is an impressive study of the role of violence and boundary-making in the destabilization and subsequent re-inscription of statehood and sovereignty. Drawing on an innovative combination of historical and contemporary cases, it will be of enormous interest to students and scholars of both historical international relations and contemporary non-state violence.