Property is a common denominator in human conflict as well as a useful tool for international studies. In order to apply property theory as a key to the analysis of human struggle, a broad definition of the term has to be accepted. Property is more than the things people own; it is the mass of rights and duties that associate persons with things, especially land. Arrogation of property is usually the precursor to the violation of human rights, but Geoff Demarest argues that the crusade for human rights has become a chase after symptoms that ignores the calculus of violated property rights...

From the foreword: "Dr. Demarest's book gives students and practitioners a pragmatic start point rooted in the classic principles of war and simultaneously in the jurisprudential principles of impunity and culpability concepts that apply across the entire plane of human conflict. Demarest reminds us that success in warfare requires control of land, and so an empirical knowledge of geography, both physical and human (if the two could actually be separated) is vital. The study of the spectrum, or firmament, of conflict and how principles of war apply across that firmament requires an...