Inventing Collateral Damage

Civilian Casualties, War, and Empire

Edited by Rick Halpern, Stephen Rockel

The term collateral damage, a euphemism for civilian casualty, came into usage during the Vietnam Ware and over several decades became entrenched in U.S. armed forces jargon. But long before the phrase was coined there were non-combatant victims of wars. Emerging from a major international conference on the subject, Inventing Collateral Damage is a collection of excellent and varied studies of civilian casualty through history: in early modern Europe, 18th- and 19th-century North America, colonial… (more information)