Jeremy Black is Professor of History at the University of Exeter. One of Britain’s leading military historians, he has written over eighty books, including: Maps and Politics (Reaktion, 1996), Why Wars Happen (Reaktion, 1998), Britain since the Seventies (Reaktion, 2004), War since 1945 (Reaktion, 2004), Altered States: America since the Sixties (2004), all published by Reaktion.

Professor Black&#39s book can be commended strongly as a text which incisively examines the causes of war(s) across the modern period with due attention to historical and cultural context. - David Weigall, Department of History, Anglia UniversityThis is a bold and innovative approach to a well-established question. Its principal merit is that it does not restrict itself to examining a few selected case studies or a limited time span, but attempts to survey one and a half millennia of world conflict within a tight analytical framework and compact format. - Peter Wilson, Department of History, Newcastle University