Customer Reviews

War and Our World

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I'm not sure what some of the other reviewers had in mind when they decided to read this book. It is a slim volume--the text itself being only 74 pages and of a typeface that is fairly large--consisting of five lectures that Keegan was asked to present in 1998. These lectures simply overview the origin and role of war and how it has evolved over the millennia. Naturally, the author has a bias and focuses on wars that he is no doubt more familiar with. Sure there is nothing really groundbreaking in this book, but it is nevertheless a concise and lucid discussion of the subject, and I enjoyed reading it very much.

1 - War and Our World
2 - The Origins of War
3 - War and the State
4 - War and the Individual
5 - Can There Be an End to War?

This book is a transcript from a series of five lectures given by esteemed military historian, John Keegan. It is a short, but highly informative book; I read it in less than an hour.

The first four chapters are brilliant historical analysis. His insight into the toll and origins of war are invaluable. He explains well how war relates to the modern nation-state and individual, observing the increasing incidence of war-making by non-state actors.

However, when he diverges from history to try to answer the question of can we end war, he is less than prescient. I have a couple problems with the final chapter.

First, he seems eager to subjugate national sovereignty to the UN by asserting that war is now illegal, except in cases of self-defense or UN approval. That may be the case in Europe, but here in America, our constitution is still the supreme law of the land. It grants the office of commander-in-chief to the president and power to raise armies and declare war to the congress. Until the constitution is amended to read differently, the US reserves the sole right to determine the legality of our wars.

Second, his British sense of honour [sic] can be carried too far. He suggests subversion, sabotage, and assassination are less than honorable in warfare. Our special operations forces must use such tactics against assymetrical threats such as Al Qaeda terrorists.

Ultimately, I agree with the thesis of the chapter though: we must always retain the will and means to confront war and violence on equal, if not overwhelming, terms.

John Keegan is a brilliant military historian, a wonderful writer and has proved so in this very focused and thought provoking book. The book is quite short to begin with, yet it answers some of the most thought-provoking and questions on war that it would take a special author to provide the answers. John Keegan is that author and each chapter delivers focused and consice answers to questions like what are the origins of war? and how does war affect the soldier?

John Keegan also predicts what type of war, if any, that we may see in the future. All of his opinions are valid ones and backed by an endless bibliography. Keegan sites many battles, tactics and scientific studies to prove his points. Keegan displays a vast wealth of knowledge on war without actually delving into the battlefield itself.

The essays never go off to describe the horrors of battle-and rightfully so. That is not the point of the book. The point of the book is to allow to understand war's bigger picture through modern and ancient combat.

I read the book on one lazy afternoon, yet my knowledge of war spanned greatly. I highly recommend this book. You will be very satisfied by reading this book and the information within is very easy to remember. It is important knowledge that Keegan presented and knowledge that I will always retain.

Early in the book, Keegan proclaims confidently that "the worst of war is now behind us." We had `the end of history', now we have the end of war, in this decade of wars in Iraq, Sudan, Congo, Angola, Rwanda, the former Soviet Union, Yugoslavia .... Mind you, he also writes that the threat of disease has ended, when worldwide every day 33,000 children die from curable diseases, and that the threat of famine has ended, when 200 million children are undernourished. Should we call for an end to endism?

He says blithely that no more states will acquire nuclear weapons, but no sooner had he finished these lectures than the Indian and Pakistani Governments tested theirs. When writing about the arms trade, he does not mention the big three, USA, Britain and France (and who else could have sold India and Pakistan the components for their nuclear weapons?).

He writes that lethal weapons could soon be banned. But in the war against Iraq, US and British forces fired tens of thousands of depleted uranium shells, illegal under UN Resolution 32/84, which bans the use of `radioactive material weapons' and US forces also used chemical weapons. They are not about to destroy these weapons.

Keegan supports British forces' participation in yet more UN and NATO wars to end war. But a greater military historian, Correlli Barnett, argued in `The Lost Victory' that successive British Governments, from Attlee to Blair, damaged Britain's interests by acting this global military role.

Keegan's complacent judgements flow from his peculiar notion that "states, particularly those of Western Europe and North America, have been transforming themselves from belligerent to benevolent entities." In fact, since 1945 NATO powers have intervened in 243 conflicts, yet he writes that "poor states mainly cause war."

Keegan is a distinguished military historian, with great narrative skills, as shown especially in the excellent `Six Armies in Normandy'. But these lectures show that he is not a profound thinker about war.

Why do countries go to war? John Keegan, military historian, examines this question in his book, War and our world. In his nonfiction book he writes five essays about the background and reasons for armed conflict.
John Keegan, who was disable as a child, didn't have the physical abilities to fight in wars. Therefore, he was a war correspondent who traveled the world. He wrote many articles about wars around the world. Also, Keegan taught British troops about military history. Keegan has the background knowledge to be a military expert.
In all of his essays, there were things that I agree with him. In the past diseases such as Typhoid, Cholera, and the Plague all killed millions of people. With better medical care, over the years, there are less deaths from diseases which killed large populations at a time. Soldiers have more chance of dying in warfare than disease. Today war kills more people than disease which should concern leaders. Another thing I agree, there are more opportunity for peace today. Communication is easier today than in earlier times. For example we have telephones, email, and easier travel so governments can meet. In the past, it would take years for leaders to communicate to solve their differences, while armies continued to fight. Just like Keegan, I can imagine that there can be an end to war.
I didn't agree with everything that keegan writes. One of those things was that he said that nuclear weapon, you have a small chance of surviving yourself because of the chemicals moving through the air to you that would kill you, too. He also said that countries make the modern war but some countries only go to war if someone attacks them. Then they have to ask the government to go to war to defend them selves.
I would recommend War and Our World by John Keegan to anyone who likes military history and politics. Mr. Keegan has lots of knowledge and some interesting viewpoint about armed conflict. Readers might agree or disagree with Keegan's opinions.

This is a very short book (I read it in one sitting), but I enjoyed it thoroughly. It doesn't delve deeply into the subject, but provides a brief, interesting commentary on war. Keegan is more than well-versed on the subject matter, so even in this brief series of lectures he has a good deal to say. The book is more enjoyable than informative, so if you are looking for hard facts you should try books like Keegan's "History of Warfare".

I'd recommend this book to everyone. Since it is so short, there is really no harm in giving it a go. For me, it was quite enjoyable.

Although I'm sure Keegan has studied war thoroughly, I must agree with two previous reviewers about 1) his questionable belief that famine and disease are insignificant problems (maybe for us residents of the developed world) and 2) the blatantly Eurocentric view of war (albeit the few references to China, Japan, and Genghis Khan). AIDS and malaria, poverty and hunger continue to kill millions of people in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Also, while Keegan states that "it is poor states that mainly cause war" he makes no mention of the involvement (historical, political, or economic) of wealthier nations in those wars.

But more importantly, though this may be an entertaining read, WAR AND OUR WORLD actually tells little about the nature of war, its origins, its transformations, and its possible future. 74 pages is just too short to even introduce a topic as wide in scope as war, and Keegan doesn't come close to providing a sturdy framework for a brief discussion of it.

Historian John Keegan is better known for his voluminous and generally incisive studies of the wars that have marked the history of humanity. With this essay, however, Keegan tackles the general issue of "war" and "our world," condensing a few hundreds years of conflict into less than a hundred pages. Unfortunately, Keegan's "our world" is rather the "Western world," which, thanks to its resources and good luck, can comfortably claim that "the diseases that killed our forebears in millions" are largely behind us. What about malaria, the AIDS pandemic, TB and other infectious diseases that still kill tens of thousands of people in the less fortunate parts of "our world"? How can "our world" fail to see these new and for the moment largely uncontrolled scourges? As for war itself, this work fails to take into account the emerging kinds of conflict - the intra-state battles, with veiled economic interests and obscure, oftentimes non-governmental participants, raging in places like Sierra Leone, the DRC, Angola, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Indonesia and others. Strangely, these do not show up on the world map Mr. Keegan would have us look at. Such general works - evidently targeting a wider audience - and the Eurocentrism which characterizes them are threatening to undermine an already shaky understanding of the realities of our world, and risk making the Western world even more complacent than it already is. Mr. Keegan is a historian of tremendous reach and talent, but unfortunately this foray into popular history is a complete letdown.

Admittedly this book was first published in 1998 and is really just a transcript of the Reith Lectures that he read and were broadcast by the BBC, but this is really not a book that belongs on the same shelf of his many other extraordinary works on humans and warfare.
It has the usual brilliant insights into war and how mankind has resorted to war since he climbed out of the trees, but this book seems to ignore the fact that disease, famine, and the other horsemen of the apocalypse are very much still with us in spite of his claims.
The last chapter actually gets a bit silly in claiming the United Nations to be the ultimate organization to about world peace, when in fact it has become a worthless and dangerous waste of money and a forum for despots and the enemies of freedom.
Written before 9/11 it pretty much ignores the advance of Islamic extremists who were murdering and maiming all over the globe. I would hope that he would have a different view after a decade of reflection, but in any event this is the one Keegan book you don't have to waste your money on if you enjoy his writing as much as i do.