John Keegan, whom The New York Times called “the preeminent military historian of his era,” is dead. 78 years old, he died after a long illness in England, where he was born and bred. Among his 20-plus books was A History of Warfare (Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), one of the best-written and most insightful investigations of violent conflict that I’ve read. Keegan takes you through the entire history of war, from the ancient Greek battles chronicled by Thucydides right up through the Cold War and the First Gulf War.
Keegan’s book serves as a potent counterpoint to and more, refutation of popular claims by scientists such as Richard Wrangham and Edward O. Wilson that war stems from deep-rooted biological impulses we share with chimpanzees. Keegan weighed and rejected these theories as well as ones attributing war to environmental and economic factors, notably overpopulation and scarcity of resources.
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