Today's world is rocked by claims and counter-claims made by the most diverse groups. The result is ideological conflict, violence, destruction and always the threat of a wider war, often based on contested land and boundaries. At bottom, all these disputes resolve themselves into conflicts about justice. But what is justice? Does it even make sense to talk about justice today, when so many use and misuse the concept for their own ends?

In this ever timely book, the Belgian philosopher, Marcel De Corte, speaks about the ancient but contemporary idea of justice and what has become of it in the 20th century. Justice is a concept philosophers have spoken about for centuries, and their debates, far from being mere scholastic controversies, carry weight and meaning for the wars and struggles that afflict our world today-and that threaten even wider wars that could engulf all humanity. De Corte brings to his in-depth discussion his background as a Thomist and his keen critique of the vagaries of modern civilization, based on distorted concepts of justice. He covers the importance of the common good, the weaknesses of contemporary democracy, the untenability of communism, and the repercussions for the Church of a misguided perception of the social order.