Ride of the Second Horseman: The Birth and Death of War

By Robert L. O'Connell

Book Overview

Intelligence analyst Robert L. O'Connell probes the distant human past to show how and why war arose, concluding that it is an invention--an institution that formed due to very specific historical circumstances. Fascinating and provocative, RIDE OF THE SECOND HORSEMAN offers a far-reaching tour of human history that suggests the ages-old cycles of war may be ending.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195119207
• ISBN13: 9780195119206
• Release Date: October 1997
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Complementary readings to O'Connell's book

There are already some good reviews, so I will only suggest reading the following books on war in addition to O'Connell's: a) "War in human civilization" by Azar Gat; b) "War before Civilization. The Myth of the Peaceful Savage", by Lawrence Keeley; c) "How War Began" by Keith F. Otterbein; d) "War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires" by Peter Turchin; and e) "War and the Law of Nations: A General History" by Stephen Neff.

An excellent synthesis of disciplines

This book greatly impressed me with its synthesis of recent evolutionary theory, anthropology, and history. It goes far beyond earlier histories of the genesis of war, presenting a cogent overall hypothesis: that a culture's means of obtaining food determined the character of it conception warfare. He shows how China, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Mexico, and Peru all developed different notions of warfare that arose directly from their agricultural economies. This book has much in common with Jared Diamond's magnificent Guns, Germs, and Steel. I wish that it enjoyed more of the latter's commercial success.