MacNair, Rachel M.

Despite basing her presentation at least as much on academic sources as on recent history, MacNair writes with sufficient force and clarity to keep general readers, even young ones, engaged: "To keep any horror going, it helps to think of it as numbers and abstract principles on a page." Furthermore, aside from the problem of a large bibliography shoveled into a single alphabetical list, the unusually broad scope of her analysis will provide a valuable intellectual structure for further study of the roots and branches of war and peace at all levels, from the individual to worldwide.