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 enlarge | Author: John G. Stoessinger
Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing
Category: Book
List Price: $63.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 6315
Media: Paperback
Edition: 10
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 448
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.7
ISBN: 0495097071
Dewey Decimal Number: 909.82
EAN: 9780495097075
ASIN: 0495097071
Publication Date: January 23, 2007
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| Customer Reviews:
 Great idea and great book December 14, 2006
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This was one of the best textbooks I have read in college. It covers most of the major wars post world war 2 and gives the history leading up to them. You can see a clear dichotomy where the major power in the world leading up to the conflict causes the conflict through foolish colonization policies. Mostly British for the first half and then the United States. It is a good summary overall and is a must have for any student in International Relations or military history. It is a well written and quick read. 5 stars.
Fascinating and Insightful March 2, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
"Why Nations Go to War" is a very fascinating book to read as it provides some unique perspectives on the reasons that the author views as the cause of nations to go into conflict. The author uses a clear and simple style of writing that make it easy to read and understand his arguments, propositions and conclusions, even if one does not agree with them.
Basically, Stoessinger argues that the national leaders play the decisive role in bringing nations into conflict. It is the characteristics and ego of the leader that, at the critical moment, makes the difference between nations crossing the Rubicon and ultimately committing to go to war. Other factors such as territorial disputes, economic considerations or clash of religions or civilisations may be contributory but not the main cause for nations to go to war. The author supports his views with some well presented, insightful and compelling case studies.
Stoessinger critically examines the characters, personalities and egos of some of the modern leaders that took their nations to war and shows how poor judgements and wrong perceptions led to disasters and untold suffering for their countries.
This is a well researched book that emphasises the importance of moral courage on the part of leaders to prevent war and not allow their fragile egos to cause unnecessary suffering to other human beings. Although this is easier said than done, this message from the author is compelling.
I recommend the book to anyone with an interest in history, international relations and war.
Very interesting perspective October 9, 2005
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I was originally required to read this book for a class, but found it interesting anyway :).
In any case, I have always been interested in history, and almost majored in it in college, and so found this book particularly interesting. His concept is so simple, and yet so often overlooked. As I understand it, his basic point is that people often think of wars as being caused by factors such as religious differences, economics, etc. Stoessinger argues that these types of factors are necessary but not sufficient. You also need additional factors, particularly misperceptions.
I think that he makes a pretty decent case for this, his examples are appropriately chosen, and he makes some very interesting observations. I think many of his ideas have very great explaining power and should be a consideration in any discussion of war.
Definitly a recommended read, particularly if you're interested in history or political science.
 A Product of a Non-Existent Discipline September 12, 2005
12 out of 23 found this review helpful
The title of a book is a promise to the reader, in this case to answer the question. Stoessinger makes little effort to make good on his promise.
When we ask "why" we are asking a question of causation, not a question of what proximate events surrounded and immediately preceeded another event. Nor are we asking for speculative assertions about the centrality of the psychological culture of a country which are easily disproven by any broader knowledge of human behavior and history.
For example, Stroessinger is "convinced that Hitler's charismatic grip on Germany can best be explained by the authoritarian structure of the family." How then do we explain the numerous similar charismatic grips held by leaders in other countries, with different family structures, throughout history? For example, Stalin, Mao, Peron, Napoleon, numerous rulers in Africa and elsewhere in the third world?
When we ask a question of causation we are not looking for answers that simply push the question back a level, or back in time, and leave it to languish there. When we ask a general question of causation such as "why nations go to war" we are seeking general answers, answers that reveal regularities and provide insight into why they exist.
So an examination of the proximate details, yet again, of WWI or WWII or any other specific war is not germain to the question at hand. To pretend to answer by describing some detail or asserting some psychological state is to beg the question...why then did that detail or psychological state exist?
Stroessinger seeks to emphasize the role of the individual leader and find the ""moment of truth" when leaders crossed the threshold into war." Unfortunately this is a very poorly concieved approach. First, because nations are not buttons to be pushed that respond automatically. Bush could decide tomorrow to attack Britain, but I doubt that anyone would respond. The people of the country have to also largely be willing to go to war with whatever country is in question.
The second problem is that he appears to be ignorant of the psychology of commitment, that one small decision can commit us psychologically to many more larger ones in the same direction. This is how corruption and corporate scandal often develops as well. People dont start out corrupt, they start out willing to look the other way and not say anything. People also dont start out willing to go massacre a whole enemy town, there is a process. That process has it's own momentum that pushes it along, each step making the next more likely, so the critical issue is when the process starts and how, not some randomly judged "threshold."
International Relations is terminally conflicted. On the one hand they seek regularities of human behavior, and on the other hand they seek to ignore the fact that all the people involved are humans, that there is just one species involved here.
Somehow they have convinced themselves of the obviously false proposition that explaining universal paterns by asserting that it is the "state system" which makes the paterns happen means that they can avoid being "deterministic." They seem to feel that explaining universal regularities of human behavior by noting that humans share a lot of genes in common with each other would be "deterministic." They also want to examine a behavior patern at the state level but ignore all the piles of evidence that the same behavior patern occurs at the band and tribal levels as well. As if ignorance will allow insight.
When it comes to the issues that Stroessinger promises in his title to address he is in fact hilariously ignorant. In the few paragraphs he devotes to the asserted topic of his book, why humans go to war, he makes a complete fool of himself. He has been so dismissive of human nature, the effects of evolution on making humans behavioraly predisposed for war, that he is beyond entirely ignorant. I quote from the sixth edition...
"Whereas aggression may be inherent, war is learned behavior and as such can be unlearned and ultimately selected out entirely.Humans have overcome other habits that previously had seemed unconquerable. For example, during the Ice Age, when people lived in caves, incest was perfectly acceptable, whereas today incest is almost universally taboo." (pg 210)
This is just comical! For one thing, plenty humans did not live in caves during the ice age. There just are not that many caves in Africa, Asia, and Australia. For another, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that incest was perfectly acceptable then, or that it had seemed an unconquerable habit. Seeing that, in evolutionary terms, incest is maladaptive, and that all primates(see Human Universals), even most mammals in general, avoid incest, this assertion is highly unlikely to be true.
Of course, there are examples such as the ancient Egyptians where the ruling Pharoahs kept their bloodline 'pure' by only marrying close relatives, like sisters. Even here though this was not the practice of the larger society, and it took place well after the ice ages.
There is just no factual basis for asserting that war is entirely a learned behavior. All human societies have war, except for a small handful of tribes that share one common trait; they are geographicaly isolated and have no neighbors. Overwhelming evidence shows that humans have made war on each other for at least the last 30,000 years (see Constant Battles), and we know now that even chimps have primitive warfare.
Denial of this only leads to a hopeless effort to show regularities while fighting to maintain complete ignorance of why such regularities exist. When the title of your book promises to in fact explain just that, why the regularities exist, it is quite a problem that you are in some strange state of denial. All you can do then is beg the question, force us to ask further questions. Why were the Germans the way they were psychologically? Why was Hitler insane? Why did this or that condition arise in the first place? Why was the government organized like that? We can keep going back and back with this method of answering why until we end up explaining WWI by looking at the Germanic wars with Rome, and perhaps back before that even.
Descriptions of proximate circumstances and purely uninformed speculative generalizations about the psychological cultures of millions of people do not constitute an answer to the causative question why.
What should be the starting point for a book by this title is showing that while the precise proximate details leading to war are infinite in variety, the psychological processes are not. There has yet to be a circumstance where mutual admiration and trust led to war. Feeling that your two nations have much in common also has proven a poor road to combat. Ditto for describing the other people as honest and good and hard working. On the other hand, opposites of the above have consistently led to war no matter what individual was the leader or what the specific circumstances were.
Stroessinger has failed to address the topic of the assignment he gave himself, so I must give him an F.
On the 9th Edition. May 3, 2005
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
I read the 9th edition of WHY NATIONS GO TO WAR in a college interdisciplinary class about the Problem of War & Peace. The book is divided into ten different sections and covers what it lumps together as 9 major wars (the author considers several small wars as coninuations of other wars): WWI, WWII, The Korean War, The Vietnam War, the Bosnian War, the wars between India & Pakistan, the wars between Israel and Arab countries, Saddam Hussein's wars against Iran & Kuwait, the War in Afghanistan & the American-Iraqi War. The last section of the book provides the authors thesis to the question the title of the book raises, why do nations go to war?
I didn't agree with everything that the author wrote. Also, though the book is heavily researched, there are some errors (for instance, recently released documents have proven that the Chinese were working together with the Soviets during the Korean War and weren't just planning on, but were intending for the U.S. to invade North Korea--it was essential to their military strategy). Despite these disagreements and flaws, I found the book fascinating. It provides a fairly thorough backdrop for most of the conflicts it talks about and though the author's assessments of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq are questionable, it still provides for a thought-provoking read.
Stoessinger's general thesis to the question of "why do nations go to war?" is that nations don't actually go to war, but the leaders of those nations do. He seems to contend that it isn't the people of the countries who are necessarily at fault and instead, the people in charge are the ones who should be held most responsible. Though there is some truth to this assertion, blaming any single person for a war is a bit absurd. The American Wild West no longer exists. Nations go to war--not people. Stoessinger seems to believe that except in extreme cases (WW II, Bosnian War) war is unnecessary. I tend to accept a more Hobbesian view of human nature and believe that despite the best human efforts, in the fallen world in which we live, war is inevitable. However, though I disagree, I really enjoyed reading the book and found the epilogue especially moving. Recommened for anyone who has an interest in world affairs and history.
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