Description: In War and Peace, Valentina Vadi investigates Alberico Gentili's contribution to the development of the early modern law of nations. Gentili discussed issues that remain topical today, including the clash of civilizations, the conduct of war, and the maintenance of peace.
Brief description: Valentina Vadi, Ph.D. (2009), European University Institute, is a Professor of International Law at Lancaster University, United Kingdom. She has published more than eighty articles in top journals, and several edited collections and monographs in various areas of public international law.
Review Quotes: "Alberico Gentili (1552-1608), the Italian exile religionis causa who became Regius Professor of Civil Law in Elizabethan Oxford, is a complex, polyvalent figure. This emerges clearly from the ambitious and important monograph penned by Valentina Vadi, appropriately added to the already well-established Brill series, Studies in the History of International Law....War and Peace will surely become a solid work of reference for those interested in one of the key thinkers of the history of international thought." -Alberto Clerici, in Grotiana, 43 (2022), 273-308.
"Vadi's study engages with an impressive range of scholarship, and she thoughtfully weighs competing interpretations....she succeeds in providing a comprehensive study of Gentili's elaborate thought." -Peter Schröder, in Journal of the History of International Law, 23 (2021), 631-640
"The book is an excellent read, analytically rigorous and methodologically refined. It provides a great addition to international legal history. Among its many benefits, the book makes a summary and analysis of Gentili's works written in Latin accessible, which are otherwise inaccessible to non-Latin speakers." -Samuel Berhanu Woldemariam, in the Australian Yearbook of International Law, 39 (2022), 321-327