Sarah Sewall, Harvard Kennedy School:
"Helen M. Kinsella fearlessly deconstructs the social origins and purposes of civilian identity in armed conflict. She reveals how political conceptions of civilization, innocence, and gender have shaped the rules of warfare and buttressed international orders. By exposing the contingent framing of legitimate targets in war, Kinsella's brilliant analysis transcends the past to illuminate future conundrums in fighting terrorism and waging modern war. The Image Before the Weapon is a fascinating historical tour and a challenge to all concerned with the conduct of war."
Ward Thomas, College of the Holy Cross:
"The Image before the Weapon addresses an issue of central importance in international law, and Helen M. Kinsella's insight is so clearly correct that it's startling to realize that no one has systematically explored it before. It is typically assumed that there is a category of 'civilian' that, while its application might change somewhat over time, at its core is conceptually unproblematic. Kinsella shows that this is not true. By providing a 'geneaology' of this term, Kinsella takes the debate over civilian immunity in wartime in a significant new direction."
Marysia Zalewski, Director, Centre for Gender Studies, University of Aberdeen, Scotland:
"Helen M. Kinsella has written an erudite, enticing and powerful book. Expertly weaving historical analysis, feminist theory and political theory, Kinsella offers an intricate genealogy of the principle of distinction and the related development of the categories of civilian and combatant. Moving analytically and historically across centuries, this meticulously researched book illustrates how discourses of gender, innocence and civilization both brace and undermine the principle of distinction upon which so many lives depend. The Image before the Weapon is an original book that sheds light on contemporary wars and conflicts."
"The Image before the Weapon is an authoritative critical history of the 'principle of distinction' that deeply informs our current political condition. Helen M. Kinsella’s tour de force transcends disciplinary divisions and speaks to some of the thorniest ethical issues in contemporary warfare. What is a civilian? What is a combatant? Who is to judge and on what grounds? Epic in its ambition and scope yet tightly focused and accessibly argued, The Image before the Weapon is a significant achievement in critical theorizing that speaks as much to contemporary debates about counterinsurgency strategy and the political dynamics of civil wars as it does to current interpretations of medieval philosophy."
Wendy Brown, Class of 1936 Professor of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley, and author of Walled States, Waning Sovereignty :
"If in no age has it been more important to distinguish between civilians and combatants, it has also never been more difficult. The Image Before the Weapon takes us through every turn of this difficulty—historical, theoretical, anthropological, gendered, and theological—to reveal how the distinction brings into being the subjects, spaces and orders it claims only to regulate. The research is dazzling, the interdisciplinary moves are elegant, the politics are searing. Helen M. Kinsella's book also establishes, at last, the indisputable belonging together of international relations and political theory."
"For centuries, philosophers and publicists have sought to formalize the distinction between combatants and civilians under what is known as the principle of distinction. Although this principle has long been viewed as stable and relatively straightforward, Helen M. Kinsella demonstrates in The Image before the Weapon that it is anything but."
