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Lead book review

War is good for us

A review of Ian Morris’ War: What is it Good For? The Role of Conflict in Civilisation, from Primates to Robots. The 20th century, Morris argues, was the most peaceful in history - and peace is overrated

5 April 2014

9:00 AM

5 April 2014

9:00 AM

War: What is it Good For? The Role of Conflict in Civilisation, from Primates to Robots Ian Morris

Profile Books, pp.495, £25, ISBN: 9781846684173

At the heart of this work is a startling and improbable statistic and the equally surprising and counterintuitive thesis that flows out of it. We are used to looking back on the 20th century as comfortably the most violent in all human history — the silver medal usually goes to the 14th — but if Ian Morris(a fellow at Stanford University) is to be believed, the century that could wipe out perhaps 50 million to 100 million in two world wars and throw in the gulags, the Cultural Revolution, civil wars, government-orchestrated famine, trench-stewed pandemics and any number of genocides...

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