It's easy to overlook that most of the time, war doesn't happen. Around the world there are millions of hostile rivalries, yet only a tiny fraction erupt into violence. With a counterintuitive approach, Blattman reminds us that most rivals loathe one another in peace. That's because war is too costly to fight. Enemies almost always find it better to split the pie than spoil it or struggle over thin slices. So, in those rare instances when fighting ensues, what kept rivals from compromise? Why We Fight draws on decades of economics, political science, psychology, and real-world interventions - drawing on examples from vainglorious European monarchs to African dictators and British football hooligans - to lay out the root causes and remedies for war, showing that violence is not the norm; th...

It's easy to overlook that most of the time, war doesn't happen. Around the world there are millions of hostile rivalries, yet only a tiny fraction erupt into violence. With a counterintuitive approach, Blattman reminds us that most rivals loathe one another in peace. That's because war is too costly to fight. Enemies almost always find it better to split the pie than spoil it or struggle over thin slices. So, in those rare instances when fighting ensues, what kept rivals from compromise? Why We Fight draws on decades of economics, political science, psychology, and real-world interventions - drawing on examples from vainglorious European monarchs to African dictators and British football hooligans - to lay out the root causes and remedies for war, showing that violence is not the norm; th...