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World War I was an epoch making event and its legacies have exerted dramatic impact on the unfolding of history as well as the study of history itself. The article introduces a commemorative volume focused on those varied legacies and their places in history. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article argues that the rebirth of interest in the just war tradition, both academically and practically, over the last few years rests on a shaky foundation. It suggests that the character of the just war as a tradition is ill suited to certain aspects of the contemporary intellectual and political world and that historical developments in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have combined unhelpfully to narrow the tradition's concerns. It also suggests that, especially after 11 September, there is a growing temptation to resent the restraints that the tradition is held to impose on warmaking and thus to ignore or abandon the just war as a way of thinking about the relationship between war and politics. Nevertheless, the article argues, to abandon the just war tradition would still bring about more loss than gain and that as an aid to moral reflection and practice on the use of force, it is still a powerful tool and an invaluable aid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]