By one of the nation’s foremost legal historians, a groundbreaking history of the pioneering American role in establishing the modern laws of war. In the fateful closing days of 1862, just three weeks before Emancipation, Abraham Lincoln’s top military advisors commissioned a code of rules to govern the armies of the United States in a newly intensified war effort. The code Lincoln issued the next spring helped shape the remaining two years of Civil War. Its rules on torture, prisoners of war, assassination, and more quickly became foundations of the modern laws of war and today’s Geneva Conventions. Yet the hidden story of Lincoln’s code, and of the decades of controversy that lay behind it, has never been told. In this masterful and strikingly original history, John Witt charts the alternately troubled and triumphant course of the laws of war in America from the Founding Founders to the dawn of the modern era, revealing the history of a code that reshaped the laws of war the world over. Ranging from the Revolution to the War of 1812, from war with Mexico to the Civil War, from Indian wars to the brutal counterinsurgency campaign in the Philippines, Witt tells a story that features presidents as well as men in the throes of battle, one that spans war-makers and pacifists, Indians and slaves. In a time of heated controversy about the nation’s conduct in the war on terror, Lincoln’s Code is a compelling story of ideals under pressure and a landmark contribution to our understanding of the American experience.

約翰·法比安·維特（John Fabian Witt），耶魯大學法學院法律史講席教授，古根海姆研究基金獲得者，美國文藝與科學院院士，具有法律博士和曆史學博士學位，曾任哥倫比亞大學法學院教授，並在哈佛大學法學院、荷蘭萊頓大學、日本東京大學任教或訪問。維特的文章發錶於《哈佛法律評論》《耶魯法學雜誌》《美國曆史評論》等各種學術期刊，以及《紐約時報》《華盛頓郵報》等各大報紙。他的《事故共和國：殘疾的工人、貧窮的寡婦與美國法的重構》（田雷譯，上海三聯書店）曾榮獲多種奬項。《林肯守則》更是榮獲美國曆史學會最高奬班剋羅夫特奬、美國律師協會最高奬銀錘奬、美國法律與社會學會威拉德·赫斯特奬等奬項，以及《紐約時報》《科剋斯書評》等各種書評類奬項。