I’ve read one book focused on trends and drivers of violence more generally, with some parts on/relevance to great power war: This is of course Better Angels of Our Nature.
Only the Dead is basically a pretty effective take-down of Pinker’s analysis of trends in interstate war. Some key points are: (i) Pinker focuses on wars between European states, or wars between (typically European) “great powers,” rather than interstate war generally. (ii) Pinker doesn’t adjust for changes in the number of states in his datasets (Europe used to be a lot more fragmented). (iii) Pinker mostly just eyeballs graphs instead of running statistical tests, which is a bad idea when data is small-n and non-normally distributed.
The author instead analyzes the Correlates of War dataset (which is meant to record all interstate wars since 1816) and concludes that there’s been no consistent downward trend over the past 200 years. The rate of interstate war has bounced up down but supposedly is no lower now than it was in the early 19th century. There’s also no evidence of a change in the distribution of the deadliness of wars, in terms of the portion of people who die in each participating state.
I also don’t totally buy the analysis, though, since there are significant issues with the Correlates of War dataset. The dataset probably makes the nineteenth century seem more peaceful than it actually was, because it uses very strict/weird criteria for what counts as a “state” that leads it to exclude nearly all non-European states in the nineteenth century. (Europe was probably the most peaceful part of the world at the time.) The dataset also begins in what was probably the most peaceful period of European history yet, right after more than two decades of constant war. So a more complete and long-run dataset might actually show something different.
The Causes of War and the Spread of Peace mostly agrees with Pinker, and has some similar issues with rigor, but (IMO) is better argued, discusses a wider range of possible explanations for the apparent decline of war, and also has a really interesting treatment of the causes of pre-modern war. I particularly like the emphasis it gives to the Industrial Revolution as a turning point in the history of war.
Hey Ben, thanks for those recommendations! I hadn’t heard of them, and both sound interesting and potentially useful. I’ve now downloaded Only the Dead, and made a note to maybe read The Causes of War and the Spread of Peace after that.
I would recommend Only the Dead and The Causes of War and the Spread of Peace over Better Angels.
Only the Dead is basically a pretty effective take-down of Pinker’s analysis of trends in interstate war. Some key points are: (i) Pinker focuses on wars between European states, or wars between (typically European) “great powers,” rather than interstate war generally. (ii) Pinker doesn’t adjust for changes in the number of states in his datasets (Europe used to be a lot more fragmented). (iii) Pinker mostly just eyeballs graphs instead of running statistical tests, which is a bad idea when data is small-n and non-normally distributed.
The author instead analyzes the Correlates of War dataset (which is meant to record all interstate wars since 1816) and concludes that there’s been no consistent downward trend over the past 200 years. The rate of interstate war has bounced up down but supposedly is no lower now than it was in the early 19th century. There’s also no evidence of a change in the distribution of the deadliness of wars, in terms of the portion of people who die in each participating state.
I also don’t totally buy the analysis, though, since there are significant issues with the Correlates of War dataset. The dataset probably makes the nineteenth century seem more peaceful than it actually was, because it uses very strict/weird criteria for what counts as a “state” that leads it to exclude nearly all non-European states in the nineteenth century. (Europe was probably the most peaceful part of the world at the time.) The dataset also begins in what was probably the most peaceful period of European history yet, right after more than two decades of constant war. So a more complete and long-run dataset might actually show something different.
The Causes of War and the Spread of Peace mostly agrees with Pinker, and has some similar issues with rigor, but (IMO) is better argued, discusses a wider range of possible explanations for the apparent decline of war, and also has a really interesting treatment of the causes of pre-modern war. I particularly like the emphasis it gives to the Industrial Revolution as a turning point in the history of war.
Hey Ben, thanks for those recommendations! I hadn’t heard of them, and both sound interesting and potentially useful. I’ve now downloaded Only the Dead, and made a note to maybe read The Causes of War and the Spread of Peace after that.