What draws our species to war & even makes us see it as a kind of sacred undertaking? Takes us on a journey from prehistoric Africa to the trenches of Verdun, from the human sacrifices of pre-colonial Central Amer. to the carnage & holocaust of 20th-cent. total war.Ó Discovers the wellspring in the blood rites early humans performed to reenact their terrifying experience of predation by stronger carnivores. There is the first form of socially sanctioned violence -- & the spiritual antecedent of war. Traces war's evolution from the sacred undertaking of a privileged warrior caste to the rite of nationalism & shows the persistence of ancient fears in the modern rituals of war. "Original & illuminating." Exceptionally wide-ranging.Ó