The honor code. How moral revolutions happen

Référence générale : Kwame, A., The honor code. How moral revolutions happen, 2010.

Le livre a été traduit en français en 2012 : Le code d'honneur. Comme adviennent les révolutions morales.

The author takes three examples of moral progres : emancipation of women, abolition of slavery and liberation the oppressed. He assumed these modern changes were not imposed by legislation from above but were conducted by the ancient power of honour from within.

For demonstrate this assomption, he explores the end of the duel in England, the tumultuous struggles over footbinding in nineteenth-century China and the uprising of ordinary people against Atlantic slavery. Finally, he confronts the horrors of "honour killing" in contemporary Pakistan, where rape victims are murdered by their relatives. He argues that honour, used to justify the practice, can also be the most effective weapon against it.

his conviction is that  honour is the driving force in the struggle against man's inhumanity to man.