Pricing Lives

Pricing Lives is a tour de force and a book of many talents. It effortlessly brings together literature, philosophy, history, economics, and political theory to address the fundamental issue of the value of life in a variety of contexts. To what extent do we value life? How do we put a price on life? How do the answers given to these questions define us as human beings and societies? These are some of the issues that Ariel Colonomos explores. Last but not least, the book is written in a highly elegant style that makes it a real pleasure to read. * Jean-Marc Coicaud, Distinguished Professor of Law and Global Affairs, Rutgers University *
'In this brilliant and knowledge-rich book, written at a time of global fragility, Ariel Colonomos questions the value of human life, that is, the price that societies, governments, and communities are willing to pay to save lives. Putting a price on life (and death) is at the heart of social relations, and balancing life and interests lies at the core of the political. But is it the human lives that matter or the goods that come with them? And are the prices given to lives indicative of the value we place on life? * Nadia Urbinati, Kyriakos Tsakopoulos Professor of Political Theory, Columbia University *
Ariel Colonomos has been, for many years, one of the most provocative and profound thinkers about the politics of life and death. His new book, Pricing Lives, is a fascinating tour through the last five centuries of Western political thought, with incisive stops at a remarkable range of examples, from Renaissance hostage-taking to COVID policy to popular film and tv. Along the way, Colonomos skewers the pieties of the pricelessness of life and reveals the compromise and bargaining that - sometimes crassly, sometimes subtly - mark the tradeoffs with which life presents us. Readers from law, politics, international relations, and philosophy will find much to admire here * Christopher Kutz, C. William Maxeiner Distinguished Professor of Law, University of California Berkeley *
In this fascinating, ambitious book eminent political theorist Ariel Colonomos argues that the political sphere depends upon the act of pricing lives. Whatever sphere of domestic or international politics one is concerned with - national welfare, climate change, terrorism and counterinsurgency, global health, etc. - this book is of sharp intellectual import and impact. * Richard Beardsworth, Professor of International Relations, University of Leeds *
Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty. * Choice *
a groundbreaking analysis thanks to its wealth of theoretical observations and empirical examples, but also to its innovative way of combining arguments taken from drama analysis, the history of philosophy, and religious doctrine, to develop an integrated theory of the negotiation dynamics of the value of human lives as part of the history of the (European) state. * Eric Sangar, Books & Ideas *