Why We Fight

Why are we willing to die for our countries? How can ideology persuade someone to blow themselves up? When we go to war, morality, religion and ideology often take the blame. But Mike Martin boldly argues that the opposite is true: rather than driving violence, these things help to reduce it. While we resort to ideas and values to justify or interpret warfare, something else is really propelling us towards conflict: our subconscious desires, shaped by millions of years of evolution. Why We Fight will change the way we think about both violence and ourselves. "Why are we willing to die for our countries? Does religion precipitate violence? Do pride, anger and vengeance lead to war? Can ideology persuade someone to blow themselves up? This ground-breaking book explores how tens of thousands of years of evolution have shaped our brains to fight, and not to fight. Drawing on insights gleaned as a soldier and a scholar, and a biologist, Mike Martin explains how the lives and deaths of our ancestors have shaped our behavior to propel us towards conflict, even as that option makes less and less sense." --Amazon.com