16 November 2008
Civil War from Rome to Iraq
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David Armitage
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Throughout history, the most frequent types of human conflicts have been civil wars. But what makes a civil war, and why are some conflicts within states called civil wars and others are not?
It's a surprisingly complicated question, but a scholar well-equipped to grapple with it is professor of history at Harvard University, David Armitage. He spoke at Sydney University recently as part of the Sydney Ideas lecture series, and answered questions from the floor afterwards on a range of topics.
Cambridge and Princeton graduate, David Armitage is the Lloyd C. Blankfein Professor of History at Harvard. He is the author of 9 books, including "The Declaration of Independence: A Global History" (2007) and "The Ideological Origins of the British Empire" (2000), for which he won the Longman/History Today Book of the Year Award.
The lecture was recorded by ABC FORA whom we thank for making it available to the Radio National audience.
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