The history of war and military art is always to be understood as a history of human civilization. Conversely, it was only when a technical or social advancement could also be utilized for the purposes of war that it became sustainable in the long term. John Keegan spans the arc from the battles of the Stone Age to the looming apocalypse of modern weapons of mass destruction, and human aggression always takes on different forms. The book exemplifies that culture and destruction go hand in hand and that the way a nation conducts war allows conclusions to be drawn about the state of its civilization.