Conflict and the Progress of Civilization from Primates to Robots
by Ian Morris
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Readers' rating:
Published Apr 2014
512 pages
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion
Publication Information
"War!.../ What is it good for? / Absolutely nothing," says the famous song - but archaeology, history, and biology show that war in fact has been good for something. Surprising as it sounds, war has made humanity safer and richer.
In War! What Is It Good For?, the renowned historian and archaeologist Ian Morris tells the gruesome, gripping story of fifteen thousand years of war, going beyond the battles and brutality to reveal what war has really done to and for the world. Stone Age people lived in small, feuding societies and stood a one-in-ten or even one-in-five chance of dying violently. In the twentieth century, by contrast - despite two world wars, Hiroshima, and the Holocaust - fewer than one person in a hundred died violently. The explanation: War, and war alone, has created bigger, more complex societies, ruled by governments that have stamped out internal violence. Strangely enough, killing has made the world safer, and the safety it has produced has allowed people to make the world richer too.
War has been history's greatest paradox, but this searching study of fifteen thousand years of violence suggests that the next half century is going to be the most dangerous of all time. If we can survive it, the age-old dream of ending war may yet come to pass. But, Morris argues, only if we understand what war has been good for can we know where it will take us next.
"Starred Review. [An] erudite yet compulsively readable history of war... [a] rare mixture of scholarship, stunning insight, and wit." - Booklist
"Starred Review. A disturbing, transformative text that veers toward essential reading." - Kirkus
"An ambitious, epoch-spanning study of violence writ large across time and place... A fascinating and stimulating work sure to compel readers of anthropology, archaeology, history, and futurity." - Publishers Weekly
"Perhaps you think that you already know everything about the history of all peoples on all the continents for the last 15,000 years. Even if you do, you'll still get a fresh perspective from this thought-provoking book." - Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies and Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
"Ian Morris' evidence that war has benefited our species - albeit inadvertently - is provocative, compelling, and fearless. This book is equally horrific and inspiring, detailed and sweeping, light-hearted and deadly serious." - Richard Wrangham, author of Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence and Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human
This information about War! What Is It Good For? was first featured
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Ian Morris is the Jean and Rebecca Willard Professor of Classics and Professor in History at Stanford University and the author of the critically acclaimed Why the West Rules - for Now. He has published ten scholarly books and has directed excavations in Greece and Italy. He lives in the Santa Cruz Mountains in California.
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