A History of Warfare

Keegan's major theoretical work — a comparative cultural history of warfare that challenges Clausewitz's definition of war as politics by other means.

Against Clausewitz: war is not the continuation of politics by other means — before states, humans fought for many reasons, and warfare has a cultural life independent of political rationality. A cross-cultural history: primitive warfare, Oriental warfare, the Western way of war. War as a cultural phenomenon shaped by geography, economy, and social structure. One of the most ambitious military histories ever written.