Author: Prof Richard Overy
ISBN No: 9780241567609
Review date: 24/01/2026
No of pages: 400
Publisher: Penguin
Publisher URL:
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/448506/why-war-by-overy-richard/9780241567609
Year of publication: 27/06/2024
Brief:
price
£22, hardback
Prof Richard Overy, though an historian, mainly of the two world wars, notes that the study of why humans do organised violence is by biologists, psychologists and anthropologists. Part two of this wide-ranging study goes over the four reasons why people go to war – for resources, out of belief, for the sake of power, or security. They are, as Overy points out, ‘not mutually exclusive’ (page 313).
While the readers of Professional Security magazine may raise an eyebrow at that final reason, even the most veteran security manager will not be old enough to have first-hand experience of one intriguing question Overy tackles early on. Were the first humans peaceful, and was warfare something that only came when humanity got organised and sophisticated; or have humans (in the main men) always been ones to fight? Overy notes that intergroup violence was evident ‘even before the first large-scale sedentary communities’ (page 7). It appears that humans produced weapons ‘from very early in human evolution’, and (more’s the point) used them. War, then, was ’embedded’ in societies (page 9).
To the present – Overy ranges over continents and the centuries, indeed millenia – and Russian President Putin’s war in Ukraine, that Overy suggests is driven by leaders who ‘see war as the solution rather than the problem’ and could carry enough of their population with them. As for religious, political or other belief that causes people to go to war, that ‘cannot be any measure be rationalised away’ (page 231). Islam and Christianity alike have a tradition of militancy, besides of peace and tolerance.
In the part of his book on security, Overy begins by quoting the English 17th century philosopher Thomas Hobbes’ great work Leviathan, that ‘states must be in a constant readiness to protect their security’ (page 271). Security here, whether of an individual or a country, is something fought for out of self-interest; and implies insecurity for others. Hence (page 272) the resort to violence, to remove a perceived threat, whether between India and Pakistan (over Kashmir) or India and China (again, over frontiers). That implies the building of barriers on boundaries, from the Great Wall of China and (pictured) Hadrian’s Wall (and numerous others by the ancient Romans) onwards.
Overy explains the field of security studies, which here means not so much national security, but the study of how states behave in international politics. Overy introduces us to two schools of thought – does your country stay secure and at peace by a stance of defence, or, more aggressively, by a military profile ‘deliberately geared to offence when needed’?
This book will be of interest besides to the general reader to the crisis management specialist. For war is persistent. Security is not an abstraction, Overy says near the end; and yet he also tells us that security is about trust (something abstract, surely?) and that it ‘has always been an elusive condition’ (page 308). So it is, we can add, for the security that a site security manager is in charge of – security is not only the fences, gatehouse, bollards, access control on the doors and so on, but the feeling of security (and hopefully not complacency) in people’s heads.
Overy closes with a discussion ‘whether war is likely to remain on the human agenda’ (page 318). He brings up cyber war, against for example CNI (critical national infrastructure) which he suggests will become an ‘increasingly significant part of any major state’s warfare armoury’. Given ‘ecological crisis’, ‘resource stress’ and ‘religious conflict’, to hark back to those four causes of war over history, Overy concludes with a blandness that is terrifying in its possible implications: war ‘has a future’.
