Azar Gat, Ezer Weitzman Professor of National Security, Department of Political Science, University of Tel Aviv

An immensely ambitious work covering not only history but archaeology, anthropology, ethnography, demography and economics, to name but a few... its weight of learning is borne aloft by the author's enthusiasm for his subject and takes his readers with it. If only there were more scholars like this! - Michael Howard, TLS Books of the Year

There's any amount of fascinating insight to be found in this big and enormously ambitious interdisciplinary study. - The Scotsman

A book of extraordinary ambition, erudition and range... Every student of war will be obliged to engage with this remarkable piece of scholarship. - Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman, King's College, London

A work of extraordinary scope and formidable erudition... Gat definitively unravels the riddle of civilization and war. - Professor Robert J. Lieber, Georgetown University

A towering and triumphant achievement... acute, scholarly, and wide-ranging: it is certainly one of the most important works on the subject written since 1945. Gat is at the top of his brilliant form, linking a variety of disciplines in a rich and comprehensive study of this most pertinent of issues. - Professor Richard Holmes