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Article: Why wars happen.
- Article from:
- History Review
- Article date:
- September 1, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 History Today Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Jeremy Black investigates one of the key questions in human history
We prefer to forget the fact, but war has played a major role in human history This is true not only of periods of killing but also of the years of so-called `peace' -- years in which the military have prepared for war, wine the rest of society has paid the costs, ranging from caring for the wounded and bereaved to dealing with the often crippling financial costs, from previous conflicts.
For those of us not in the military there is terrible temptation to forget or ignore what we dislike. In the universities war is generally ignored as a subject. Yet this is unhelpful, because we need to ...