This hefty hardcover volume is a 734 page abridgement of Vollman's massive seven-volume original that was published in 2003 by McSweeney's. Vollman's introduction states, "What you have here is (1) a selection of "when is violent defense of X justified" chapters, which are (I hope) interesting in their own right; followed by (2) the complete Moral Calculus, which contains my answers to every "when is" question considered in the long volume; rounded off with (3) several case studies from war zones, et cetera, along with all regional introductions to the case studies." Our favorite quote from the introduction: "The long version of Rising Up Rising Down took me twenty-three years... the abridgement took me half an hour." We're bringing this to your attention with the thought that now might be a fruitful time to reflect on this book's theme, and due to the spectacularly low price at which we currently able to offer it.