Violent Cartographies: Mapping Cultures of War - Tapa dura

What would the world look like if we didn't have maps? When we define a region or nation-state, what are we creating? In this volume, Shapiro considers these questions, exploring the significance of war in contemporary society and its connections to the "geographical imaginary". Employing an ethnographic perspective, Shapiro uses reversals and juxtapositions to jolt readers out of conventional thinking about international relations and security studies. Considering the ideas of thinkers ranging from von Clausewitz to Virilio, from Derrida to DeLillo, Shapiro distances readers from familiar political and strategic accounts of war and its causes. Shapiro uses literary and film analyses to elucidate his themes. For example, he considers such cultural artifacts as US Marine recruiting television commercials, American war movies and General Schwartzkopf's autobiography, elaborating how a certain image of American masculinity is played out in the military imaginary and in the media. Other topics are Melville's "The confidence man", Bunuel's film "That obscure object of desire", and a comparison of the US invasion of Grenada to an Aztec "flower war". Throughout, Shapiro draws attention to the violence of the colonial encounters through which many modern nation-states were formed, and ultimately suggests possible directions for an ethics of minimal violence in the encounter with others. The overall effect is a layered analysis of the historical and moral conditions of the current use of violence in the conduct of international relations.