Ben Waber reviewed War: How Conflict Shaped Us by Margaret MacMillan
An Interesting But Ironically Light History
3 stars
MacMillan opens with an intriguing premise - that war needs to be understood through the lens of how it has shaped societies, societal change, and culture to appreciate why our world looks like it does today and how to avoid future conflict while achieving some of its goals. However the book itself doesn't attempt to unpack this issue, and is instead mostly a themed review of similarities between aspects of warfare through the centuries. This organization creates a bit of whiplash, mostly because it's not chronologically ordered to analyze how these relationships evolved. Ultimately one comes away with some interesting historical examples of different phenomena but not necessarily a deeper understanding of war's effects.
MacMillan opens with an intriguing premise - that war needs to be understood through the lens of how it has shaped societies, societal change, and culture to appreciate why our world looks like it does today and how to avoid future conflict while achieving some of its goals. However the book itself doesn't attempt to unpack this issue, and is instead mostly a themed review of similarities between aspects of warfare through the centuries. This organization creates a bit of whiplash, mostly because it's not chronologically ordered to analyze how these relationships evolved. Ultimately one comes away with some interesting historical examples of different phenomena but not necessarily a deeper understanding of war's effects.