Only the Dead

Steven Pinker''s The Better Angels of Our Nature is, quite simply, one of the most influential social science books of the past decade. In it, Pinker argued that violence in all its forms--but especially war--has been steadily declining throughout the modern era, and that the world is more peaceful now than ever before. The book found a very receptive audience, and it is indeed a powerful work. But is it true? In Only the Dead, Bear Braumoeller assesses the claim that armed conflict is in decline and finds it wanting. In the course of his assessment, he also develops a powerful explanation for trends in warfare over time. His central finding is that, although there has been a drop in the rate of international conflict following the end of the Cold War, that drop followed nearly two centuries of steady increases in the rate of conflict. Moreover, the rate of civil war onset has increased following the end of the Cold War, and extrastate wars (wars between states and non-state entities)