Ride of the Second Horseman: The Birth and Death of War

There are already some good reviews, so I will only suggest reading the following books on war in addition to O'Connell's: a) "War in human civilization" by Azar Gat; b) "War before Civilization. The Myth of the Peaceful Savage", by Lawrence Keeley; c) "How War Began" by Keith F. Otterbein; d) "War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires" by Peter Turchin; and e) "War and the Law of Nations: A General History" by Stephen Neff.

This book greatly impressed me with its synthesis of recent evolutionary theory, anthropology, and history. It goes far beyond earlier histories of the genesis of war, presenting a cogent overall hypothesis: that a culture's means of obtaining food determined the character of it conception warfare. He shows how China, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Mexico, and Peru all developed different notions of warfare that arose directly from their agricultural economies. This book has much in common with Jared Diamond's magnificent Guns, Germs, and Steel. I wish that it enjoyed more of the latter's commercial success.