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In our experience, the printing and binding of your thesis is almost always a last minute panic with the deadline looming with today's technology, we believe that the existing service available to students is inefficient, time consuming and stressful., why ethesis.

In our experience, the printing and binding of your thesis is almost always a last minute panic with the deadline looming! With today�s technology, we believe that the existing service available to students is inefficient, time consuming and stressful.

The Solution

You focus on getting the content and layout of your thesis right; We will print, bind and deliver your thesis, to your university specification, with a quality and speed of service that we believe is unmatchable.

OUR BINDING

We have been binding theses for Imperial College London students (our offices are 2 minutes walk from their campus) for a number of years, as well as theses for students throughout the UK and Overseas.

Our bindery have been involved in the production of thesis binding since the 1940�s and have invested in the most up-to-date equipment.

We print 24/7 on high quality 100gsm white bond paper using the latest digital machines.

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Thesis binding and printing options

• By DiscoverPhDs
• November 29, 2020

If you have recently completed your dissertation congratulations are in order! But the work is not finished – you now have to get your dissertation in front of examiners in a professional format. There are a number of factors to consider when producing a physical copy of your thesis :

• Type of binding (for example: helical or softback)
• Paper size (are some pages better suited for A3?)
• Print options (single or double-sided?)
• Paper quality (a range of gsm options are available)

What is Thesis/Dissertation Binding?

Thesis binding involves fastening the physical pages of your dissertation together to produce a single presentable document. As simple as it sounds, there is a lot to get right, and dissertation binding is important in giving a good impression of your work.

What are the different types of dissertation binding?

Spiral/helical/wired binding.

Spiral binding (also known as helical binding) and wired binding are very common for bachelors and masters dissertations. These options give a professional look and allow pages to be rotated 360 degrees, making for easy reading. Spiral binding uses a plastic coil, whilst wire binding uses a metal wire.

Fastback/softback binding

Fastback binding (also referred to as softback binding) uses glue to keep your dissertation pages together. This is not a very common choice for dissertation binding as it is rather formal for bachelors and masters, and perhaps not formal enough for PhD theses. Fastback binding also comes with a risk of glue losing fixity over time leading to pages falling out.

Thermal binding

Thermal binding is not very common but can be used for bachelors or masters dissertations. This type of binding is permanent (so pages cannot be easily added/removed) but is generally inexpensive. Another disadvantage of thermal bindings is that pages cannot be opened 360 degrees (as with fastback binding).

Plastic comb binding

Comb binding involves punching holes down the side of the page and binding with a plastic comb strip. This binding option is also suitable for bachelors and masters dissertations. It is a cheap option but can sometimes become difficult to navigate as pages become stuck on the plastic combing. One advantage of plastic comb binding is that it is easy to add and remove pages.

Paperback binding

Paperback binding will give your manuscript the appearance of a book and comes with personalisation options i.e. a titled cover page, spine and back. This gives a very professional appearance, too formal for a bachelors or masters dissertation, but ideal for a PhD thesis.

Hardback binding

Hardback binding again gives a book like appearance, but is expensive and typically reserved only for PhD theses. In addition to custom titling, spine and back, there is a range of material and colour options for hardback binding e.g. the gold lettering you may have seen on academic books.

What Paper Size Should I use?

Most universities will provide very clear instruction on paper sizes, most often A4. However, some pages such as technical drawings or maps may be best shown on A3. In these cases ‘fold out’ pages are an option but must be approved by your university guidelines.

Print Options:

Check your university guidelines when deciding whether to print single or double sided. If printing double sided, be careful as some pages should not be printed back to back. For example, new chapters should start on the right hand page (of a double spread) so blank pages may be required.

What Paper Quality is Suitable?

Paper thickness is measured in grams per square metre (gsm). Although there is no ideal paper thickness, too thin and you risk your dissertation feeling low quality. Too high and you risk your dissertation pages feeling like cardboard, and again pointing to low quality.

Popular UK Services:

Ryman is an affordable thesis binding service, with a range of options for dissertations and theses. Ryman often have stored on University campuses or nearby, so you can check the services provided by your local store (as an alternative to ordering online).

Doxdirect is an online service which offers a large amount of customisation when choosing a thesis binding option. The door to door service also offers a wide range of delivery and production options so you get your bound thesis in your hand as quick as possible.

Thesis Online has been around for a long time (established in 1920), and have a very good reputation. They offer an online thesis binding service and have a hand online calculator which allows you to modify your binding, printing, and deliver options and see the impact on cost in real-time.

Things to Note:

Whichever service you use to bind your thesis or dissertation, there are a few important things to remember:

When using an online service check the turnaround time. Most services take around a week to print, bind, and deliver, though faster services are available at a cost. Some universities have an onsite printing service that students can use. These services likely offer binding options which satisfy your department’s dissertation submission requirements.

An electronic copy and physical copy of your dissertation will be read differently. Whilst consecutive pages are easy to compare on a computer screen, a physical copy may have pages printed on opposite sides of a single page (if double page printed) which makes side by side comparisons difficult. This is something to consider if your text frequently refers to images or tables overleaf.

Most thesis printing services only accept PDF file formats. Ensure that when you convert your dissertation to PDF that you review the document to ensure no errors occur during conversion.

Check your university dissertation guidance on margin requirements. It is also important to factor in margins when considering binding options. Typically a minimum margin of 2.5cm is required on the side of the page to be bound.

Although it comes with an additional cost, it may be useful to purchase personal copies of your bound thesis. You can then bring your bound copy to your Viva , and ensure that what you and your examiners are looking at are identical.

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Smith-Shattuck Bookbinding

Thesis binding styles.

Library Standard Binding (Buckram) The least expensive book we offer is the library standard binding. This is machine oversewn, with a black buckram cloth cover binding of acid-free construction. Your last name and date of degree are gold stamped on the spine. This is the binding style that graduate students need in order to meet the requirements for a Doctorate at Princeton University. It is also attractive enough for presentation to advisors or undergraduate thesis submissions.

Books up to ½-inch thick are made with a square (unrounded) spine. We round and back the spine for sizes above ½ an inch.

View an assortment of doctoral thesis library standard bookbinding here .

Buckram Roundback Binding The buckram roundback binding includes all the features of our library binding process. In addition, we gold foil stamp the book’s title and your full name on the front cover along with a separator line between the title and name. On the spine we will put your last name and date of degree, along with decorative double lines at the top and bottom of the spine. Our stamping design can be varied to meet the requirements of your school. Stamping colors available include gold, silver, copper, white, black, red and blue.

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Email: [email protected]

Tel: +44 (0)20 4529 7046

Thesis Binding Frequently Asked Questions

We'll try to answer some of your frequently asked questions about our thesis binding service.

What weight paper is used?

We use and recommend 90gsm which is usually the standard for most University's.

What margins are required for binding?

We prefer a 2.5cm margin around all edges to allow for sewing and trimming. If you have used Microsoft Word to produce your work then the standard margins will be acceptable. Our minimum requirement is 2.5cm on the bind edge. Ensure that foldouts and diagrams produced have reasonable margins and that page numbers, headers and footers are positioned no less than 2.5cm away from the edge.

Is it advisable that we put a gutter margin (to make the left margin slight bigger than the right margin) to make space for the binding?

Binding your thesis usually takes about 5-6mm off the sewn edge. We would recommend that you accommodate for this in your document layout.

Why do you only allow PDF documents to be bound?

The PDF is the industry standard for document sharing. This means that we can more reliably print your document regardless of the original platform or format of the original source document.

I already have my thesis in PDF format. Is there any way just to send you this to be bound?

If your thesis is already in PDF format that is fine, you will not need to convert your document. Instead you will be given the option to upload your own PDF on step 5 of the order process.

My thesis has more than one PDF file, what can I do?

We can only accept one PDF per thesis order. You can combine multiple files from our pdf conversion page. To do this select the number of files you need to convert, use the file browsers provided to locate your files and convert as normal. You can use this to combine your PDF files as well as other documents.

What is the minimum number of pages for a bound thesis?

We can bind documents with as few as 30 sheets of A4 paper, however any less that that and we may not be able to fit text onto your spine.

What is the maximum number of pages for a bound thesis?

We can bind up to 500 pages, if you have more than 500 we would recommend splitting your document into multiple volumes, and binding each volume separately.

Can I collect my thesis rather than getting it delivered?

Yes, this allows you to pick up your thesis from our premises the day the binding is completed. Please see our collection times for reference.

Is the One Hour Super Express binding service guaranteed within one hour?

On our One Hour Super Express binding only service, we would complete the binding of your thesis for you to collect one hour after you deliver it to us. This service is only available if you deliver your thesis to us no later than 3pm that afternoon.

Thesis Binding Cover Colours

Colour your Covers

We have a wide variety of colours to cover your Thesis. Our standard colours are displayed here, but if you would like a different colour, take a look below and make a note of the colour number code which you should specify when placing your order.

(imp) Purple

Fast Delivery

Deliveries are made using FedEx Next Business Day Service (UK Mainland Only) *Please allow for this when considering the turn-around time you require

For overseas shipments please contact us for a quote

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• Preparing your thesis

Master's dissertations

‌‌‌‌For a full list of departments with MScs and dissertations in Spiral, see  Theses

Depositing Master's dissertations in Spiral

The deposit of Master's dissertations is managed by departments and is not mandatory. 

Administrators in each department are responsible for collating all dissertations as PDF files and for creating their bibliographic data. ICT then upload the files and data to Spiral.

If your department would like to do this, please note:

• your departmental administrators will be responsible for the data entry
• you must use the Masters dissertations template  (Excel) for data entry
• you must follow the data entry and upload guidelines, see  Guidelines for uploading Master's dissertations to Spiral (pdf)
• you must upload the files and completed spreadsheet to OneDrive, as per the upload guidelines

For further assistance contact your librarian

Thesis printing and binding

Situated just around the corner to all the major London universities, we are perfectly placed for your last minute printing. Order online for high quality student thesis to collect in as little as 2 hours or delivered anywhere within the UK. We have the binding templates for most universities.

Welcome to Prontaprint Russell Square, the thesis specialists. We work with thousands of students just like you who are struggling to find a fast, cost effective, reliable thesis printer. We offer thesis printing in as little as 2 hours. Why use us? We have years of experience in producing thesis to your university's specification with the cheapest colour printing price for thesis that we know of.

What we offer

All of our thesis are printed in house and we are just around the corner from UCL and the University of London. Foiling on the spine comes as standard and you can also digitally foil a front cover. We offer a 2, 4, 24, 48 hour, delivery to any UK and an express London delivery option with colour printing at just 20p and binding from just £20 Are you looking for dissertation binding instead?

How To Order

You can order online or order in store. Please see below for more information.

Click & Collect

Upload your PDF and choose the various options including when you need it and pay for it online. Once your order has been accepted we'll email you the time it will be ready to collect in-store and can be ready as fast as 2 hours.

We offer two delivery services: UK delivery Delivery to anywhere in the UK mainland and it typically takes 3-4 working days. Deliveries to outside the UK mainland and the Scottish Highlands typically take 4-7 working days. Express central London Your thesis will be delivered either the day the order is processed or the following working day. This service is only available to the following postcodes: EC1, EC2, EC3, EC4, WC1, WC2, W1, NW1 and SE1.

Order In-Store

Prefer to come and see us? No problem, bring us your PDF and we'll take you order in-store. It would be lovely to meet you anyway!

Why not try our price generator to work out exactly how much your thesis will cost?

Printing on good quality 100g paper: B/W throughout: 10p per side Colour & B/W mix: 20p per side Front cover foiling: £12 per bind. Documents are usually a mix of B/W and colour so we have calculated a special reduced rate of 20p to accommodate this. These prices are for students only and already include student discount. The printing prices are only for when we print the entire document. If only parts of the document require printing or any customer collation is required different timescales and printing prices will apply.

When will it be ready?

We have a handy tool to calculate when your thesis will be ready for all of the options available.

For collection in-store orders we offer a 48, 24, 4 or 2 hour service. This includes the printing time. If ordering online the timeframe chosen does not start until the order has been received and processed by our staff. This can take up to an hour during peak periods and only between 9am to 5.30pm Monday to Friday. Orders received outside this time will not be begin until 9am the next working day. Orders for Standard UK delivery will be ready for dispatch within 2 working days and couriers will then deliver within 1-2 working days. Orders for Express central London will be delivered either the day the order is processed or the next working day. There may be a delay if delivery cannot be made. The 2 hour service may not be available during peak times so please get in contact in advance to discuss. We do not take advance bookings.

University Specification

We have a number of templates for various universities so no need to worry, just press the relevant button when ordering. If you require something different for somewhere else, not a problem, just choose the Custom option and you can specify the relevant specification for your university.

The ever growing list universities we have templates for are:

Aberystwyth University, Aston University, Bangor University, Birkbeck, Birmingham University, Bolton University, Bradford University, Bristol University, Brunel, Buckingham University, Chester University, City University London, Coventry University, De Montfort University, Dundee University, East Anglia University, Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh University, Exeter University, Glasgow Caledonian University, Goldsmiths, Huddersfield, Imperial College, IOE, Keele University, King's College London, Kingston, Leeds Beckett University, London Metropolitan University, LSHTM, LSE, Manchester University, Middlesex University, Newcastle University, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford University, Plymouth University, Portsmouth University, Queen Margaret University, Queen Mary, London, Queen's University Belfast, Reading University, Robert Gordon University, Royal College of Art, Royal Holloway, Royal Veterinary College, Salford University, SOAS, Sotheby's Institute, Southampton University, St Andrews University, Staffordshire University, Stirling University, Sunderland University, Teesside University, UAL, UEL,UCL, Warwick University, Westminster University, Winchester University, and Worcester University.

Cover & Spine Format

We can bind with black or blue Buckram cloth to your university's specification, you'll just need to let us know whether you'd like soft or hard covers and the information for the spine e.g. PhD 2024 SMITH, A. Foiling can be gold or silver. If you would also like your front cover foiled you will need to supply us a single page PDF of the front cover. The PDF must be B/W and contain only text and small simple line images only. Anything else may not print properly.

Printing & Binding

All of our theses are bound using extra strong glue along the spine. You can either bring us the document ready to bind or we can print it here on good quality 100gsm paper. We may not accept pre-printed documents which we decide are too curly to be bound. We can bind between approximately 25 and 435 sheets of 100g (depending on the paper) in one volume. A blank sheet is inserted at the front and back as standard. Larger theses are split into two volumes (please check with your college or university if multiple volumes are accepted). We only bind A4 sheets so all A3 sheets will be scaled down to A4. We only bind theses in portrait (long edge) so all landscape pages are automatically rotated to portrait. Both soft and hard bound thesis are glue bound. We do not check the layout, content or margins of your document so you must ensure what you send us is correct to your university's specification.

Press the button below to view a number of Frequently Asked Questions.

What are your opening hours?

Can i book a time slot in advance, can i get a friend to collect, can i email an order, can i deliver directly to my university, which files can you print from, most of the document is black and white, but i have a few pages in colour, can we print them separately, what size should my margins be, i need to add a cd is that possible, do i need to include a white sheet at the front and back of the thesis, is this service available at any other prontaprints, can i amend the thesis in any way once it has been ordered, give us a call.

If you have any questions then please get in contact, you can call or email us anytime.

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THESIS & DISSERTATION BINDING SPECIALISTS

Specialists in thesis and dissertation binding.

Bookbinders of distinction since 1872

Welcome to Mythesis, the dedicated division for the printing and binding of thesis and dissertation documents from Spink & Thackray Bookbinders.

We have been offering bookbinding and rebinding services to students for many years now, providing them with beautifully bound thesis, dissertations and documents.

Based out of premises in Leeds, our highly skilled team allow us to provide a range of services from book binding to foil blocking through to conservation and digitisation.

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Choose your Hard bound, Soft Acetate Bound and Comb Bound bindings. You can configure the binding colours and any extras.

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The Outsize Influence of Small Wars

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New issue out next week. Subscribe to our print edition today.

The small wars waged by European empires generated arguments for the legitimacy of state violence that remain in use today. Lauren Benton’s new book, They Called it Peace , finds that the era of gunboat policing anticipated the age of the predator drone.

A colorized engraving shows a Connecticut Colony militia attacking an encampment of Pequot people during the Mystic massacre of 1637. (Stock Montage / Getty Images)

What do we see if we watch the camera footage taken by the Israeli drone that vaporized four unarmed young men as they walked through the ruins of Khan Younis? One answer might be an incident in a “small war.” Lauren Benton’s They Called it Peace: Worlds of Imperial Violence is a nimble and provocative history of such conflicts, which developed at the frontiers of European empires and “at the threshold of peace and war.”

Benton ranges around the globe and through the centuries to select a few of the many small wars that flared up from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries. With formidable erudition, she traces their continued influence on how states both justify and downplay violence today. Small turns out to be a misnomer: before they stopped, often only to start up again, these campaigns provided ample opportunity for atrocities. They were also outsize in their influence, generating arguments and procedures that allowed states to take extreme measures against enemies who were easily depicted as barbaric enemies of civilization.

The Law of the Wolf

Benton, an eminent global historian, criticizes the Eurocentrism with which historians often recount the development of the laws of war. Their narratives often follow the mid-twentieth century jurist Carl Schmitt in arguing that binding rules of conflict developed in and were limited to the civilized West. Of course, Europeans were not exactly sticklers for the Geneva Conventions. Schmitt himself had been an enthusiastic Nazi. But it has often been thought that they placed their atrocities in supposed “states of exception,” during which governments suspended accepted restraints in response to emergencies. When imperial powers committed such crimes outside Europe, they inflicted them in places where no one had ever imagined that war could be humane.

Yet violence between Europeans and their others overseas was never as lawless as this story implies: instead, it initially followed understandings of law that have been forgotten or are now hard to recognize. Benton’s story begins with the “choppy violence” with which the Spanish colonized the New World. As they advanced deeper into America, intent on plunder, Spanish forces offered truces to their victims. Dissident Spanish intellectuals argued even at the time that the notorious “Requerimineto” with which the conquistadors formally extended an offer of conditional surrender was designed to be “read to the trees” rather than properly understood. Yet truces were offered and sometimes accepted in earnest.

From the Spanish point of view, religion required and enabled them to pursue the common good by making peace with alien people who were nevertheless under the sway of the law of nature. This concept provided the moral of an episode in the life of Saint Francis, in which he struck a deal between the townsfolk of Gubbio and a hungry wolf. The townsfolk agreed to provide the wolf with food if he laid off his attacks on their livestock, thereby demonstrating that the law of nature was so powerful that it could even bridge the species gap.

Yet in New Spain, the Spanish took the part of the wolf, and their hunger was not so easily satisfied. To make truces allowed them to accuse their adversaries of breaking them and so cast them enemies as traitors and rebels who merited little quarter. They could dress up aggression as “pacification.” Benton tells us that the Puritan colonists of New England followed tactics similar to those of the Roman Catholics of New Spain. In 1637, they gloried in their massacre of hundreds of Pequod people at Mystic in Connecticut, producing engravings that fastidiously logged the piles of their corpses. From their point of view, this was a legitimate act of reprisal for violent breaches of the peace agreed between them.

Intellectuals in Europe were beginning to formulate a recognizably modern notion of “solemn war” — which left it to territorial states to formally initiate hostilities that were then waged by well-trained armies. Yet overseas the distinction between war and the sporadic violence of raids, reprisals, and massacres remained less clear-cut. Scholastic theorists certainly drew a distinction between the settler households that garrisoned the imperial frontier and polities, which alone had the right to go to war. Yet individual colonists often reserved the right to fight, especially when it allowed them to enslave the vanquished.

A “Global Regime of Plunder”

The first English governors of Jamaica pursued a formal peace with Spain after the conquest of the island in 1655. Yet they recognized that most of their colonists lived “only upon spoil and depredation” and allowed them to initiate their own attacks on the Spanish. Raids that captured enslaved Africans and put them to work on sugar plantations were important to the island’s economy. And so the colonists manufactured justifications for them: they appealed to Spanish infractions to justify the theft of people, but also discovered a preemptive “right to war” based on perceived threats to their safety. The boundary between war and piracy was still permeable.

The brazenness of this “global regime of plunder” gave way to more sophisticated rationales for violence as European empires began to collaborate in the oppression of the native inhabitants of the regions in which they vied to seize markets or to plant colonists. One way they did so was by agreeing that Europeans alone could decide when a war was underway and in what manner it could be conducted. This was a presumptuous claim, because they rarely enjoyed such sovereign freedom of action: across the eighteenth-century globe, European troops were often the pawns of warring native powers.

On the Indian subcontinent, English and French corporations squared off against one another as the mercenaries of local rulers. In British North America, British and French commanders faced each other as allies of warring First Nations. Imperial agents sucked into these conflicts often had to explain to superiors back home how they could kill or take captive the agents of other European powers without violating peace treaties with them. Their explanations often revolved around claims of self-defense or the forceful promotion of their commercial privileges, while stopping short of war.

Rival European powers also came together to blame eruptions of violence on their supposedly uncivilized allies. On the Rio de la Plata, Spanish and Portuguese armies joined forces to force Guaraní people out of the missionary towns located on lands that Spain wished to swap with Portugal. The Guaraní naturally objected that they were loyal to Spain, but their self-assertiveness just created the impression they were dangerous rebels. When the Order of Jesuits tried to lobby on behalf of their converts, they attracted the same contempt: angry royal officials drove them out of Portugal.

The Age of “Protection Emergencies”

The insistence of Europeans that only they had the requisite civilization to regulate violence in these far-flung places chimed with developments back in Europe. The publication of The Law of Nations (1758) by the Swiss jurist Emer de Vattel marked a significant shift in thinking about war and peace. While Jesuit and other scholastic thinkers had thought that all human beings might appeal to the law of nature to justify or condemn violence, Vattel proposed a different outlook. He argued that war derived from the deals struck between territorial nations, which generated a positive, or conventional, body of international law.

Vattel’s conception of this law admittedly extended beyond mere horse trading. He argued that nations waged war to enforce a balance of power between states, which ultimately benefited everyone. The huge caveat was that indigenous peoples of “unsettled habitation” — and, as it happened, religious bodies like the Jesuits — lacked the footing to decide what this common good was.

Benton’s agile account of this shift in thinking shows that it involved much more than Vattel’s theoretical flex. The more Europeans developed the ability to project and concentrate military force over great distances, the keener they were to monopolize the right to do so. The captains of Britain’s Royal Navy, who patrolled the globe uncontested in the century after the Battle of Waterloo, not only frequently engaged in violence but continuously justified and documented their actions in doing so. Benton’s extraordinary sketch of these cannon-toting intellectuals shows that they did just as much to further European ownership of war as Vattel, even if their judgments were more instinctive than theoretical.

They fired on African coastal forts to disrupt the slave trade, from which Britain had ostentatiously withdrawn in 1807. They landed raiding parties on the rocky shores of the Pacific Northwest to burn down unruly villages or to seize fugitives from British justice. When they reported on such doings to the Admiralty, they portrayed them as prudently calibrated maneuvers rather than as rash lurches into war. They struck to avenge British subjects or to defend them from danger in “protection emergencies” — another of Benton’s coolly deliberate misnomers. Not only did these so-called emergencies become routine, but in other, less official hands, “protection” chartered devastating, preemptive aggression. In 1820s Tasmania, heavily armed bands of settlers hunted and shot down the native people wherever they found them, on the flimsy premise that they posed a potential threat.

From Gunboats to Drones

The Royal Navy often had less sovereign freedom of action in protection emergencies than Benton implies. In the Pacific Northwest, the decisions to deploy armed force were usually taken not by ships’ captains but by the crown’s governors. Those governors answered to colonial secretaries in London, who often criticized their decisions on grounds not of morality but of expense: it was too costly to underwrite the security of every stray Briton scattered across the globe. Yet Benton is right that what happened at the margins of empire had an outsize impact on thinking about war at its center. Although it often suited naval captains and other men on the spot to describe actions against “enemies,” they had not been engaged in wars as the term was now generally understood. At best they had launched what theorists eventually codified as “small wars”, which were more akin to aggressive forms of policing. Imperialists argued that far from breaking the peace, these small wars secured and expanded it, by decisively and at times brutally snuffing out the unruly violence of native peoples.

Gunboat policing was meant to engineer global prosperity as well as peace. Although some mid-nineteenth-century utopians had hoped to see a day when the peaceable exchange of goods would do away with the need for fleets and armies in Europe and across the world, free trade underwent a marked militarization in the later nineteenth century. The timely application of armed force promised to muscle open closed markets to European manufacturers and guaranteed the security of European, and increasingly American, traders, investments, and property, upon which a global system of free trade depended.

Benton’s narrative ends with the hubristic proclamation of this “global regime of armed peace,” which coincided with the heyday of Europe’s overseas empires and the violent creation of America’s. Yet her conclusion sketches sinister continuities between the world of the gunboat and the age of the predator drone. The vicious conflicts through which empires were wound up in the mid–twentieth century were often dubbed “counterinsurgencies” or “asymmetric” conflicts. Yet a Victorian admiral would have recognized them as small wars all the same. As Erik Linstrum has shown for Britain, these conflicts were represented to home audiences as mere policing actions, which roughly cracked down on cruel and unprincipled threats to British people and to civilized order. The theorists of America’s forever wars likewise argued that they were engaged in the kinetic protection of liberal values against terrorists and the states who sponsored them.

Law as an Instrument of Violence

Benton reminds us that the “studied looseness” with which modern nations invoke the norms of war is not confined to the West. Vladimir Putin styled his invasion of Ukraine as a “special military operation”: an action that stopped short of and did not require a conventional declaration of war, especially because he denies that Ukraine is a legitimate territorial state. Putin also worked up a strategy from the imperial playbook by invoking a protection emergency, arguing that he had intervened swiftly to protect Russian speakers from oppression or even looming genocide.

Benton has previously evinced optimism about the potential of law to curb atrocities. In a coruscating review of Caroline Elkins’s history of the British Empire’s crimes, she argued that Elkins wrongly cast its violence as a “totalizing force.” Britain’s liberalism was in fact no sham: its rhetorical commitment to the rule of law supplied its colonial subjects with a tool with which they could protest or even stop the open display of brutality against them. Historians could document Britain’s crimes without blurring the distinctions that separated it from Nazi Germany, which deployed limitless violence against what it viewed as its racial and ideological enemies.

They Called it Peace is at once more saturnine and sweeping in its judgments: all empires, with the exception of the Nazis, act in the end without legal guardrails. Benton does certainly draw attention to “virtuoso performances of legal authority” by extra-European as well as European players, such as the luckless Guaraní. But somehow Western powers always won the prize in these contests. It was a “myth that law ever worked to contain violence”: instead, law was violence’s instrument, authorizing bursts of brutality in the beguiling name of peace.

Operation Swords of Iron, which bears all the hallmarks of a small war, is a grim illustration of the thesis. The state of Israel is waging it against an organization — and at times a whole people, held guilty of supporting that organization — rather than against what it refuses to recognize as a state. Its invasion of Gaza was a response to a protection emergency, intended to avenge the killings committed by, and to liberate the hostages taken by, Hamas — an actor beyond the pale of civilization or meaningful negotiation.

Israel, with the aid of the United States, has for months prevented this small war from escalating into a full-scale conventional conflict with its regional adversaries — although Iran’s missile strike on the country in reprisal for the killing of its officials in Syria suggests this containment policy may yet fail. It boasts that a corpus of rules and principles has guided its violent eradication of Hamas. Just as naval officers once chose when to launch their salvos and then justified them, so protocols and lawyers discipline the artificial intelligence–assisted selection of targets for drone and missile strikes by junior officers.

What Benton calls “chatter” about the containment of violence has merely structured the unconscionable infliction of death and hunger on Gazans. Her somber book does not directly address the war in Gaza but provides little hope that outsiders could ameliorate how it is being fought. If there is a moral lesson to be gleaned from the book, it is a slim and wintry one: the history of small wars should lead us to distrust claims that they are a legitimate or limited way for states to defend their peoples. Those who make a desolation must not be allowed to call it peace.