Why War?

Why War? PDF Author: Christopher Coker
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197644228
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
What are humanity's biological origins? What are the mechanisms, including culture, that continue to drive it? What is the history that has allowed it to evolve over time? And what are its functions--how does it survive and thrive by exploiting the features that define it as a species? These are the four questions of the Tinbergen Method for explaining animal behavior, developed by the Nobel Prizewinning Dutch ethologist Niko Tinbergen. This book contends that applying this method to war--which is unique to humans--can help us better understand why conflict is so resilient. Christopher Coker explores these four questions of our past and present, and looks at our post-human future, assessing how far scientific advances in gene-editing, robotics and AI systems will de-center human agency. He concludes that we won't witness war's end until it has exhausted its evolutionary possibilities--meaning that, well into the future, war is likely to remain what Thucydides first called it: 'the human thing'. From the Ancients to Artificial Intelligence, Why War? is an exhilarating tour d'horizon of humankind's propensity to warfare and its behavioral underpinnings, offering new ways of thinking about our species' unique and deadly preoccupation.

Why War?

Why War? PDF Author: Christopher Coker
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197644228
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 198

Get Book Here

Book Description
What are humanity's biological origins? What are the mechanisms, including culture, that continue to drive it? What is the history that has allowed it to evolve over time? And what are its functions--how does it survive and thrive by exploiting the features that define it as a species? These are the four questions of the Tinbergen Method for explaining animal behavior, developed by the Nobel Prizewinning Dutch ethologist Niko Tinbergen. This book contends that applying this method to war--which is unique to humans--can help us better understand why conflict is so resilient. Christopher Coker explores these four questions of our past and present, and looks at our post-human future, assessing how far scientific advances in gene-editing, robotics and AI systems will de-center human agency. He concludes that we won't witness war's end until it has exhausted its evolutionary possibilities--meaning that, well into the future, war is likely to remain what Thucydides first called it: 'the human thing'. From the Ancients to Artificial Intelligence, Why War? is an exhilarating tour d'horizon of humankind's propensity to warfare and its behavioral underpinnings, offering new ways of thinking about our species' unique and deadly preoccupation.

Dog Tags of Courage

Dog Tags of Courage PDF Author: John C. Burnam
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
The outstanding story of four thousand American war heroes: the german shepherds and labrador retrievers who saved countless lives in the Vietnam War. A combat veteran and scout dog handler explores the remarkable bond between valorus soldiers and their extraordinary canine teammates.

Red War

Red War PDF Author: Vince Flynn
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 150119061X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
This instant #1 New York Times bestseller and “modern techno-thriller” (New York Journal of Books) follows covert operative Mitch Rapp in a terrifying race to stop Russia’s gravely ill leader from starting a full-scale war with NATO. When Russian president Maxim Krupin discovers that he has inoperable brain cancer, he’s determined to cling to power. His first task is to kill or imprison any countrymen threatening him. But when his illness becomes increasingly serious, he decides on a dramatic diversion—war with the West. Upon learning of Krupin’s condition, CIA director Irene Kennedy understands that the US is facing an opponent who has nothing to lose. The only way to avoid a confrontation that could leave millions dead is to send Mitch Rapp to Russia under impossibly dangerous orders. With the Kremlin’s entire security apparatus hunting him, he must find and kill a man many have deemed the most powerful in the world. The fate of the free world hangs in the balance in this “timely, explosive novel that shows yet again why Mitch Rapp is the best hero the thriller genre has to offer” (The Real Book Spy).

War of the Rats

War of the Rats PDF Author: David L. Robbins
Publisher: Bantam
ISBN: 0307575373
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 514

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Book Description
For six months in 1942, Stalingrad is the center of a titanic struggle between the Russian and German armies—the bloodiest campaign in mankind's long history of warfare. The outcome is pivotal. If Hitler's forces are not stopped, Russia will fall. And with it, the world.... German soldiers call the battle Rattenkrieg, War of the Rats. The combat is horrific, as soldiers die in the smoking cellars and trenches of a ruined city. Through this twisted carnage stalk two men—one Russian, one German—each the top sniper in his respective army. These two marksmen are equally matched in both skill and tenacity. Each man has his own mission: to find his counterpart—and kill him. But an American woman trapped in Russia complicates this extraordinary duel. Joining the Russian sniper's cadre, she soon becomes one of his most talented assassins—and perhaps his greatest weakness. Based on a true story, this is the harrowing tale of two adversaries enmeshed in their own private war—and whose fortunes will help decide the fate of the world.

World War Z

World War Z PDF Author: Max Brooks
Publisher: Broadway Books
ISBN: 0770437400
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
An account of the decade-long conflict between humankind and hordes of the predatory undead is told from the perspective of dozens of survivors who describe in their own words the epic human battle for survival, in a novel that is the basis for the June 2013 film starring Brad Pitt. Reissue. Movie Tie-In.

Causes of War, 3rd Ed.

Causes of War, 3rd Ed. PDF Author: Geoffrey Blainey
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0029035910
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
The peace that passeth understanding -- Paradise is a bazaar -- Dreams and delusions of a coming war -- While waterbirds fight -- Death-watch and scapegoat wars -- War chests and pulse beats -- A calendar of war -- The abacus of power -- War as an accident -- Aims and arms -- A day that lives in infamy -- Vendetta of the Black Sea -- Long wars -- And shorter wars -- The mystery of wide wars -- Australia's Pacific war -- Myths of the nuclear era -- War, peace and neutrality.

The Lincoln Assassination - The Rewards Files

The Lincoln Assassination - The Rewards Files PDF Author: William C. Edwards
Publisher: William Edwards
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
After the trial of the conspirators was over, the Govt. called for claims to the rewards for the apprehension of John Wilkes Booth, Jefferson Davis, and other members of the conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. Many of the Detectives, Soldiers and citizens involved wrote detailed descriptions and sometimes submitted original reports to support their claims. This book is a summarization of the four reels of NARA microfilm of all submitted claims and official documents.

The Hidden Structure of Violence

The Hidden Structure of Violence PDF Author: Marc Pilisuk
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1583675434
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
Acts of violence assume many forms: they may travel by the arc of a guided missile or in the language of an economic policy, and they may leave behind a smoldering village or a starved child. The all-pervasiveness of violence makes it seem like an unavoidable, and ultimately incomprehensible, aspect of the modern world. But, in this detailed and expansive book, Marc Pilisuk and Jen Rountree demonstrate otherwise. Widespread violence, they argue, is in fact an expression of the underlying social order, and whether it is carried out by military forces or by patterns of investment, the aim is to strengthen that order for the benefit of the powerful. The Hidden Structure of Violence marshals vast amounts of evidence to examine the costs of direct violence, including military preparedness and the social reverberations of war, alongside the costs of structural violence, expressed as poverty and chronic illness. It also documents the relatively small number of people and corporations responsible for facilitating the violent status quo, whether by setting the range of permissible discussion or benefiting directly as financiers and manufacturers. The result is a stunning indictment of our violent world and a powerful critique of the ways through which violence is reproduced on a daily basis, whether at the highest levels of the state or in the deepest recesses of the mind.

The Elements of Moral Science

The Elements of Moral Science PDF Author: Francis Wayland
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 398

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Book Description


The Zookeepers' War

The Zookeepers' War PDF Author: J.W. Mohnhaupt
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 150118850X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
The unbelievable true story of the Cold War’s strangest proxy war, fought between the zoos on either side of the Berlin Wall. “The liveliness of Mohnhaupt’s storytelling and the wonderful eccentricity of his subject matter make this book well worth a read.” —Star Tribune (Minneapolis) Living in West Berlin in the 1960s often felt like living in a zoo, everyone packed together behind a wall, with the world always watching. On the other side of the Iron Curtain, East Berlin and its zoo were spacious and lush, socialist utopias where everything was perfectly planned... and then rarely completed. Berlin’s two zoos in East and West quickly became symbols of the divided city’s two halves. So no one was terribly surprised when the head zookeepers on either side started an animal arms race—rather than stockpiling nuclear warheads, they competed to have the most pandas and hippos. Soon, state funds were being diverted toward giving these new animals lavish welcomes worthy of visiting dignitaries. West German presidential candidates were talking about zoo policy on the campaign trail. And eventually politicians on both side of the Wall became convinced that if their zoo proved to be inferior, that would mean their country’s whole ideology was too. A quirky piece of Cold War history unlike anything you’ve heard before, The Zookeepers’ War is an epic tale of desperate rivalries, human follies, and an animal-mad city in which zookeeping became a way of continuing politics by other means.