The subject of the 1998 Reith Lectures is war - its origins, its history and its future. War has afflicted the life of mankind in this century as it has done no other. War, always a scourge, has become a menace that threatens the end of human existence.

In this short book, Keegan concentrates on the significant themes: the impact of war on our century and the forms it has taken, the adoption and use of war by states as an instrument of policy, the deadly assaults on the established order by ethnic and religious fundamentalists and ideological terrorists, the experience of war by individuals and human groups and its effect on their existence, and, finally, the future of war, particularly the question whether there can now be an end to it.

As a military historian John Keegan has the qualities of the best commanders, broad strategic grasp combined with insight into the human fibre of the battlefield, and an eye to what the lessons portend.