War: What is it good for?

by Ian Morris

  So far as I know, no recent book treats the crises of all Eurasia’s empires between A.D. 200 and 600 comparatively, but Christian 1998, pp. 209–303, gives a useful survey from the perspective of the steppe nomads.

  Size of states, A.D. 1–1400: For the sake of consistency, I use the sizes listed in Taagepera 1979. His data set skips over some periods and is light on South Asian cases; I have measured these from published maps.

  Toynbee: McNeill 1989. Scientific approaches seeking regularities in steppe history: Turchin 2003, 2006, 2009, 2010; Turchin and Nefedov 2009.

  Counterrevolution in military affairs: Bloch 1961 and Ganshof 1961 are now extremely dated but remain valuable (see below on their critics). Herlihy 1970 is a fine collection of primary sources, and Halsall 2003 is good on the military situation in western Europe.

  Battle of Hastings: Howarth 1981 remains the classic account. Medieval military indiscipline: Morillo 2006.

  European medieval war: Contamine 1984; Verbruggen 1997, 2004. Bachrach 2006, 2011 argues that cavalry were never important in western Europe, but this is a minority view.

  Justinian: Maas 2005; O’Donnell 2008. Seventh-century crisis: Haldon 1997; Howard-Johnston 2010. Muslim conquests and the caliphate: H. Kennedy 2004, 2007. Charlemagne: Barbero 2004; McKitterick 2008.

  Multiple ties of dependence in western Europe: Bloch 1961, pp. 211–18. De Coucy: Tuchman 1978, pp. 246–83.

  Criticisms of describing Europe as feudal: E. Brown 1974; S. Reynolds 1994.

  Debates over feudalism outside western Europe: China, Graff 2002a, pp. 37, 256; Lewis 2009a, pp. 54–85. India, R. S. Sharma 1985, 2001; Chattopadhyaya 2010. Abbasid caliphate: M. Gordon 2001; H. Kennedy 2001. Byzantium: Haldon 1993; Treadgold 1997. On western Eurasia as a whole, Wickham 2005.

  Violence in late Roman and medieval Europe: Tuchman 1978 is a wonderful read; see also Halsall 1998; Canning et al. 2004, pp. 9–89; W. Brown 2010; McGlynn 2010; Shaw 2011.

  Sixth- and seventh-century China: Twitchett 1979; Graff 2002a, pp. 92–204; Lewis 2009b. Cavalry and relations with the steppes: Skaff 2012. Battle of the Iron Mountain: Graff 2002a, pp. 183–89; 2002b.

  Chang’an in 883: Kuhn 2009, pp. 16–17. Fall of the Tang: Somers 1979.

  Earliest gunpowder weapons: Needham 1986; Chase 2003, pp. 30–33; Lorge 2008, pp. 32–44.

  Hun siege warfare: Heather 2006, pp. 300–312. Nicopolis: Poulter 1995. Mongol siege warfare: T. May 2007, pp. 77–79. Siege of Baghdad: T. May 2007, pp. 130–34. Sieges of Xiangyang and Fancheng: Lorge 2005, pp. 83–87.

  Battles of Tarain: Sarkar 1960, pp. 32–37. Medieval Indian cavalry: Bhakari 1980, pp. 55–61.

  Increasing organization of nomad empires: Di Cosmo 1999; Chaliand 2004.

  Battle of the Indus: T. May 2007, p. 123. Second Battle of Homs: Amitai-Preiss 1995, pp. 179–201.

  Nomadic death toll: Several of the sections in M. White 2011, pp. 59–153, discuss the numbers killed by steppe nomads and the empires that fought back against them. White is right to criticize the recent trend among historians to downplay the scale of slaughter, but some of his own estimates (such as thirty-six million for the Tang breakdown of 755–763 and forty million for Genghis Khan) seem very high.

  Tamerlane: Manz 1989.

  Western European homicide: Eisner 2003, with discussion in Spierenburg 2008, pp. 1–42.

  Cadfael: Twenty-one books by Ellis Peters, beginning with A Morbid Taste for Bones (London: Macmillan, 1977) and ending with Brother Cadfael’s Penance (London: Headline, 1994).

  Spread of farming outside the lucky latitudes: G. Barker 2006 is excellent on the details.

  Spread of caging across the Pacific: Kirch 1984, using the revised chronology in Kirch 2010, pp. 126–27. Productive war on Hawaii: Kirch 2010; Kolb and Dixon 2002. Sahlins 2004 has a fine account of the great wars of eighteenth-century Hawaii, stressing their similarities to the Peloponnesian War in fifth-century-B.C. Greece.

  Navajo wars: McNitt 1990; Trafzer 1990.

  War and state formation in Japan: Berry 1989; Farris 1996; Ferejohn and Rosenbluth 2010; Friday 2003; Ikegumi 1997; Turnbull 2002, 2012; and, last but not least, James Clavell’s epic novel Shogun (1975) and the accompanying TV miniseries (NBC, 1980), set in the early seventeenth century. Hideyoshi’s invasion of Korea: Swope 2009. Tearing down castles and banning books: Parker 1996, pp. 144–45.

  African state formation: Ehret 2002. Great Zimbabwe: Pikirayi and Vogel 2001.

  Natural experiments in history: Diamond and Robinson 2010.

  Aztec weapons: Hassig 1988; Pohl 2001. Extinction of New World horses: Haynes 2009. Andean copper-working ca. 1000 B.C.: Kolata 1993, pp. 61–62. Lords of Sipán: Alva and Donnan 1993.

  European culture more rational than Native American: V. D. Hanson 2001, pp. 170–232. Native American cultures more peaceful than European: P. Watson 2012.

  Mesoamerican calendars: Aveni 2001; Hassig 2001. Raised fields and irrigation: Sanders et al. 1979, pp. 252–81.

  Maya decipherment: Coe 2012. Maya war: Webster 1999.

  Aztec Flower Wars: Compare Keegan 1993, pp. 110–11, with Hassig 1992, pp. 145–46.

  Continental axes: Diamond 1997, pp. 360–70. Biomes: Ricklefs 2001. Turchin et al. 2006 and Laitin et al. 2012 have tried testing Diamond’s theory against data for the spread of other institutions and even languages, with results that suggest that continental axes may be important in many other ways.

  Arrival of the bow in Alaska: B. Fagan 2012, p. 63. Arrival in Mexico: Hassig 1992, p. 119.

  Teotihuacán: See references for Chapter 2, and Cowgill 2013 on the city’s fall. Toltecs: Diehl 1983; Smith and Montiel 2001. Aztecs: M. Smith 2003. Violence in Aztec society: Carrasco 1999. Mesoamerican warfare and state formation: Brown and Stanton 2003; Eeckhout and Le Fort 2005; Hassig 1988, 1992; Sherman et al. 2010; Webster 1999.

  American Southwest: Cordell and McBrinn 2012. Southwestern war: LeBlanc 1999; Rice and LeBlanc 2001. Cahokia: Pauketat 2004.

  Comanche Empire: Hämäläinen 2008 (with pp. 243 and 352 on the Mongol analogy).

  Agincourt: See J. Barker 2007 and the superb account in Keegan 1976, pp. 79–116 (with pp. 106–7 on the implausibility of the stacks of corpses); and, of course, Shakespeare’s Henry V. Kenneth Branagh’s 1989 film version is one of the all-time great war movies. The precise casualties are debated: See Reid 2007, pp. 275–76.

  Ceuta: Boxer 1969, pp. 15–19.

  4. THE FIVE HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR

  Not many books treat the period 1415–1914 as a unit in its own right, but several excellent studies cover most of the period or discuss it as part of a longer story. I have benefited particularly from Chase 2003, Cipolla 1965, Headrick 2010, P. Kennedy 1987, Lorge 2008, McNeill 1982, Parker 1996, C. Rogers 1995, and Simms 2013. On the British Empire, volumes 1–3 of The Oxford History of the British Empire are the standard reference works.

  Kafiristan: Rudyard Kipling, “The Man Who Would Be King,” first published in the series Indian Railway Library 5 (Allahabad: A. H. Wheeler, 1888), reissued many times since, and made by John Huston into a memorable film starring Michael Caine and Sean Connery (Allied Artists, 1975).

  James Brooke: Runciman 1960. Josiah Harlan: Macintyre 2004.

  Early Chinese guns: Chase 2003, pp. 30–55; Lorge 2008, pp. 69–75. Dazu Cave: Lu et al. 1988. Manchurian gun: Needham et al. 1986, pp. 111–26, 147–92.

  Early Indian guns: Khan 2004. Persian guns: Woods 1999, pp. 114–20. Oxford illustration: Hall 1997, pp. 43–44.

  There are many fine studies of Europe’s gunpowder takeoff. Hall 1997, P. Hoffman 2011, and Lorge 2008 differ from my interpretation in important ways.

  Western way of war: Lynn 2003 offers an extended rebuttal of Hanson’s arguments.

  Firearms: A Global History to 1700: Chase 2003.

  Ivan the Terrible: De Madariaga 2006. Chinese shipbuilding: Needham 1971. Zheng’s voyages: Dreyer 2006. European shipbuilding: Gardiner and Unger 2000. Voyages of exploration: Fernández-Armesto 2006. Henry
the Navigator: Russell 2000. Pirate wars: Earle 2003. European guns in Asia: Chase 2003; Lorge 2008. Victories over steppe nomads: Perdue 2005.

  Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal Empires: Dale 2010; Hathaway 2004; Streusand 2010.

  Safavid prosperity: Floor 2000. Mughal prosperity: Richards 1994. Ottoman prosperity: Inalcik and Quataert 1994.

  Productivity of Yangzi Delta around 1600: Allen et al. 2011. Southern India and Bengal: Parthasarathi 2011, pp. 68–78. New World crops: C. Mann 2011.

  Evidence for Asian wages: Pamuk 2007, with references. Debates over India: Parthasarathi 2011, pp. 37–46; Broadberry and Gupta 2006; R. Allen 2007.

  Abbas I: Blow 2009. Beheading in 1593: Dale 2010, p. 93.

  Violence in Ming literature: Robinson 2001. Statistics of Ming violence: Tong 1991.

  Ming-Qing cataclysm: Struve 1993. Death toll: M. White 2012, pp. 223–30, although his estimate of twenty-five million seems very high.

  European musketry, drill, volleying, and training: See particularly Parker 1996 and C. Rogers 1995.

  In recent years, some historians have downplayed the novelty of European military reforms (for example, P. Wilson 2009, pp. 186–87) or the scale of Europe’s military lead over other cultures (for example, Black 1999), but I do not find their arguments very compelling.

  New naval tactics: De Glete 1999.

  Seven spare pairs of silk stockings: David Bell 2007, p. 39.

  English navy, Pepys, and finance: J. D. Davies 2008.

  Kabinettskrieg: Duffy 1987. Flying head: Hainsworth and Churches 1998, p. 125.

  Financial solutions: Bonney 1999, with comparisons outside western Europe in Yun- Castalilla et al. 2012.

  The financial crashes of 1720: N. Ferguson 2008, pp. 119–75, has a fine account.

  Portuguese Empire: Boxer 1969. Spanish Empire: Kamen 2003.

  Bullet holes in Inca skeletons: Murphy et al. 2010. Columbian exchange: Crosby 1972, 2003; C. Mann 2011. American population collapse: C. Mann 2005. The estimate of 50 percent comes from mitochondrial DNA: O’Fallon and Fehren-Schmitz 2011.

  Jamestown cannibalism: Horn et al. 2013.

  India before 1750: Asher and Talbot 2006.

  British wars in India: Judd 2010; S. Gordon 1993. R. Cooper 2003 argues that Maratha armies were just as effective as British, but this would make the outcomes hard to explain.

  Battle of Towton: Boylston and Knüsel 2010. Richard III: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2273535/500-years-grisly-secrets-Richard-IIIs-lost-grave-revealed-King-discovered-car-park-stripped-tied-suffered-humiliation-wounds-death.html.

  Pacification in Europe, 1500–1750: Elias 1982 (1939); Spierenburg 2008; Pinker 2011. Market economies and social change in western Europe: Braudel 1981–84 remains the best account. Europeans working harder: De Vries 2008.

  Atlantic economy: Findlay and O’Rourke 2007. Numbers of Africans shipped across Atlantic: Inikori and Engermann 1992. War, politics, and trade: Tracy 1991. Growth of trade: Findlay and O’Rourke 2007, pp. 227–364. Statistics: pp. 260, 314.

  Adam Smith: Phillipson 2010.

  Transformation of late-seventeenth-century England: Pincus 2010. Open-access order: North et al. 2009. Acemoglu and Robinson 2012 develop similar ideas. Freedom and government in eighteenth-century England: Brewer 1989.

  European wages: R. Allen 2001, 2003.

  Early American Republic: Wood 2009.

  British Empire in the eighteenth century: C. Bayly 1989; P.J. Marshall 1998–2000.

  People’s war: David Bell 2007. American people: Wood 1991. American Revolutionary War: Among many excellent accounts, my favorites are Middlekauff 2007 and Ferling 2009.

  Eighteenth-century philosophers on perpetual peace: David Bell 2007, pp. 52–83.

  French Revolutionary Wars: Blanning 1996. Massacres: Broers 2008. Napoleonic wars: Rothenberg 2006. Naval wars: Mostert 2008.

  Although now very dated, Eric Hobsbawm’s trilogy (1962, 1975, 1987) on the nineteenth-century world remains one of the great reads in historical literature.

  Industrial Revolution: R. Allen 2009; Wrigley 2010.

  Opium War: Fay 2003.

  Technological change and imperialism: Headrick 2010.

  White settler colonies: Duncan Bell 2007; Belich 2009.

  Gap between European and other armies: Callwell 1909 is the classic eyewitness account. David 2006 describes British experiences; Porch 2000 warns against exaggeration.

  American Civil War: The literature is overwhelming. McPherson 1988 puts the war in context; Keegan 2009 offers a fresh perspective on the events.

  Isandlwana: David 2004, pp. 124–58. Adwa: Jonas 2011.

  Naval gap between the West and the rest: Herwig 2001.

  Nineteenth-century Britain and the world-system: N. Ferguson 2003; Darwin 2009.

  On death tolls, see in general M. White 2011, with references. Population figures taken from Maddison 2003. New World death rates from disease: See above. American holocaust: Stannard 1993. Misra 2008 says ten million were killed in the Indian Mutiny, but most historians put the figure well under one million (see David 2006). Famines and Indian death rates: Fieldhouse 1996. Davis 2001 blames the famines strongly on Britain. Congo: Hochschild 1998.

  Reception of Kipling’s “White Man’s Burden”: Gilmour 2002.

  Indian anarchy and the East India Company’s crackdown: Washbrook 1999. Violent crime in India: Fisch 1983, Yang 1985, and Singha 1998 document courts’ aggressive crackdowns on interpersonal violence. More recent studies, such as Kolsky 2010 and T. Sherman 2010 (the latter taking the story into the twentieth century), however, tend to focus on British violence against Indians rather than broader efforts to suppress violence. Wiener 2008 looks at Australia, Kenya, and the Caribbean as well as India.

  Rammohun Roy: Sen 2012.

  Historians’ evaluations of the British Empire vary wildly. Gott 2011 is the most negative that I have seen.

  Decline in European violence: Spierenburg 2008. American violence: Roth 2009. Casualties in wars: M. White 2011.

  Nineteenth-century economic growth: Frieden 2006, pp. 13–123.

  Figure 4.17: Data from Maddison 2003.

  Hague conferences: Sheehan 2008, pp. 22–26.

  5. STORM OF STEEL

  The Great Illusion: Angell 1910 (the book was frequently reissued in expanded versions; like most historians, I use the fourth edition, of 1913). On Angell himself: Ceadel 2009.

  Twentieth century as age of extremes: Hobsbawm 1994.

  Sarajevo: Dedijer 1966 remains the standard academic analysis, and D. Smith 2009 gives an up-to-date general treatment.

  Casualties in 1914: Stevenson 2004, pp. 75–76.

  Decisions to go to war in 1914: There are excellent analyses in Hamilton and Herwig 2003, McMeekin 2011, Stevenson 2004, pp. 3–36, and Strachan 2001, pp. 1–102. On ways war might not have broken out, Beatty 2012.

  March of Folly: Tuchman 1984.

  British GDP: Maddison 2010. Growth of new industrial and naval powers: Broadberry 1998; P. Kennedy 1987, pp. 194–249; Trebilock 1981. American and German wars of the 1860s compared: Förster and Nagler 1999. Centrality of finance to the late-nineteenth-century British world-system: Cain and Hopkins 2000.

  Figure 5.1: Data from Bairoch 1982. Figure 5.2: Data from Maddison 2003. Figure 5.3: Data from P. Kennedy 1987, table 20.

  British intervention and the American Civil War: H. Fuller 2008; Foreman 2010. Great rapprochement: Perkins 1968. British and American navies: O’Brien 1998. Britain’s naval alliances: Sumida 1989.

  Geography and strategy: Mackinder 1904, with Kearns 2009.

  Germany before 1871: Sheehan 1989; C. Clark 2006. Bismarck: Lerman 2004. A.J.P. Taylor’s Bismarck (1967) nowadays seems very old-fashioned but remains a great read. Germany after 1890: P. Kennedy 1980; C. Clark 2009. German strategic intentions: Fritz Fischer 1967, 1974 set off a bitter debate by suggesting that Germany aimed at world domination in 1914. Strachan 2001, pp. 52–54, has a concise review of the debate, and Mulligan 2010 g
ives a general picture of the whole period 1870–1914.

  Bond markets in summer 1914: N. Ferguson 1998, pp. 186–97.

  Crises of 1905–13: Jarausch 1983.

  General course of World War I: The literature is enormous. My favorites are Strachan 2003 for a brief account, Stevenson 2004 for a mid-length study, and Strachan 2001 for a comprehensive treatment of the first year of the war.

  On the Schlieffen Plan, see Zuber 2011, to be read with the spirited debate in the journal War in History, beginning with Zuber’s 1999 paper. On the eastern front, Stone 1975 and Showalter 1991 remain classics.

  Germany’s “September Program”: Fischer 1967; N. Ferguson 1998, pp. 168–73.

  Germany’s defeat on the Marne in 1914: Herwig 2009.

  The war at sea: Strachan 2001, pp. 374–494; Massie 2003. Africa: Strachan 2001, pp. 495–643; Paice 2010.

  Methods of fighting in 1914: Howard 1985. Storm of Steel: Jünger 2003, trans. from the 1961 German edition. Jünger first published In Stahlgewittern in 1920 but heavily revised the text in later editions. Lions led by donkeys: A. Clark 1962 is a classic account. Military learning in World War I: Doughty 2008; Lupfer 1981; W. Murray 2011, pp. 74–118; Travers 2003.

  War economies: Broadberry and Harrison 2005; Chickering and Förster 2000.

  Horses: The Royal National Theatre’s adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s 1982 novel, War Horse, first staged in 2007, gives an extraordinarily powerful impression of this side of the war. The 2011 film version directed by Steven Spielberg is less memorable.

  Command and control: Sheffield 2001; Sheffield and Todman 2008. Technological fixes: Travers 1992; Echevarria 2007. Gas casualties: Corrigan 2003, pp. 173–74. Tanks: Childs 1999. War in the air: M. Cooper 1986.

  Attrition: Harris and Marble 2008. Cost per kill: N. Ferguson 1998, p. 336.

  Jihad: Aksakal 2011. Submarine war: Halpern 1994. Atlantic lifeline: Burk 1985.

  Russia’s collapse: Figes 1997.

  Modern system: Biddle 2004. Storm troops: Gudmundsson 1995 (Griffith 1996 argues that British troops mastered infiltration tactics earlier than the Germans). A Farewell to Arms: Hemingway 1929. Germany’s 1918 offensive: Zabecki 2006; Hart 2008. Allied counteroffensive: Boff 2012.