War! What Is It Good For?: Conflict and the Progress of Civilization from Primates to Robots

Ian Morris examines fifteen thousand years of war and its effects on human civilization. While the famous song claims war is good for nothing, Morris argues that archaeology, history, and biology reveal war has made humanity safer and richer. Stone Age societies were small and feuding, with death by violence occurring at rates of one in ten or one in five. By the twentieth century, despite world wars, Hiroshima, and the Holocaust, fewer than one in a hundred died violently. Morris contends that war created larger, more complex societies governed by institutions that reduced internal violence. This paradox—that killing has produced safety, which in turn enabled greater wealth—forms the central argument of the book. Morris warns that the next fifty years may be the most dangerous period yet. He suggests that understanding war's historical role is essential to predicting its future course and potentially achieving the long-held goal of ending war altogether.