ABOUT WAR: Making Sense of War
Reviewed By Janet Mawdesley April 27, 2025
Author Christopher K Pike
Distributor: Brown Dog Books
ISBN: 978-1839523786
Publisher: Brown Dog Books
Release Date: 2022
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War is a paradox and a war is a scandal and regardless of what you think about War, how long or how often you pray or wish for world peace, the reality of the situation is that world peace is a fleeting thing, whereas War has been around since humans first walked this earth and is showing no signs at all of departing any time soon.
In this fascinating look at War from Christopher K Pine, About War, he has, as have others before him, set down the interpretation of what is defined as War and what is also and perhaps more accurately, Warfare or the art of waging War.
It is considered that war has no origin, it simply is a fact that men have waged war over almost anything, from land, to football, even stray dogs; in academic circles it is also considered as an activity that is ’mankind’s greatest experiment’.
So why then do men wage warfare against one another? The Americans summed it up rather neatly by coining the description ’blood and treasure’, but surely there has to be politics and ego at the core of the matter, as well as in several instance a dash of madness, as could be viewed in The Football War between El Salvador and Honduras in 1961 with around 3,000 casualties.
Pike traces the intriguing history of war to modern times with the establishment of NATO, the United Nations and various other government and non-government agencies, after the global devastation wrought during World War II, to try and prevent the outbreak of such wholesale devastation occurring again.
But as history tells, war has continued and at the time of writing, war was being waged in Syria and the Ukraine, as well as parts Africa in the long, long list since the cessation of hostilities in 1946.
Perhaps the release of About War is timely, as the re-election of Donald Trump for his second term in office sees the United States of America on a pathway to isolation, to withdrawing from all the established means of achieving what passes for peace in the modern world, and will help people understand the real issues that lie at the heart of waging warfare in the modern world.
About War is a timely read that is both informative and fascinating as it paints an excellent picture of what motivates governments to spend millions to send men, women and machinery to war, with the winner, if there is one, taking all!