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2009 Maurice and Muriel Fulton Lecture in Legal History

The Verdict of Battle

James Q. Whitman
Ford Foundation Professor of Comparative and Foreign Law, Yale Law School

May 7, 2009, 4:00 p.m.

Weymouth Kirkland Courtroom
University of Chicago Law School
1111 East 60th Street, Chicago

Reception following

In its classic form, a “decisive” pitched battle was a beautifully contained event, lasting a single day, killing only combatants, and resolving legal questions of immense significance. Yet since the mid-nineteenth century, pitched battles no longer decide wars, which now routinely degenerate into general devastation. Why did pitched battle ever work as a conflict resolution device? Why has it ceased working since 1860?

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