War: The Lethal Custom - Tapa blanda

While modern science ponders whether human beings are programmed toward belligerence and warfare, there is no doubt that war has been humanity's constant companion since the dawn of civilization, and that we have become all too proficient in its conduct. In War, noted military historian Gwynne Dyer ranges from the tumbling walls of Jericho to the modern advent of total war in which no one is exempt from the horrors of armed conflict. He shows how the martial instinct has evolved over the human generations and among our close primate relations, such as the chimpanzee. Dyer squarely confronts the reality of war, and the threat of nuclear weapons, but does not despair that war is our eternal legacy. He likes and respects soldiers, even while he knows their job is to kill; he understands the physics and the psychology of battles, but he is no war junkie. Dyer surveys the fiery battlefields of human history, never losing sight of the people caught up in war. He actually believes there is hope that war can be abolished, that human beings are more than just our genes. War is an award-winning book that explores the human past to imagine a different future.

GWYNNE DYER served in the Canadian, British, and American navies. He earned a Ph.D. in military history from the University of London, and was a senior lecturer in war studies at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. The original version of this book, published in 1985, won a Columbia University School of Journalism Award. A seven-part television series based upon War was broadcast in forty-five countries in the mid-1980s; one of the episodes was nominated for an Academy Award. Dyer writes a twice-weekly newspaper column on international affairs and security policy that is published by 175 newspapers worldwide, many in the U. S. He lives in London with his wife and children.