The overbearing return of war in international relations is producing consequences that were unthinkable until recently, calling into question the idea that humanity was now capable of overcoming the horror of major conflicts forever. Meanwhile, the revolution taking place in the biological and anthropological sciences seems to radically alter our knowledge of the origins and evolution of our species, recognising war as a behaviour with deep roots in our natural history. Two fundamental ideas of our time thus fall together: that war is just a bad cultural invention and that there are objective historical tendencies that move towards its overcoming in the civilised history of humanity. This is a radical, anthropological-political paradigm shift that requires a unified, interdisciplinary reflection that enables us to face the political and intellectual challenges we face with an adequate awareness.

Until now, there has been no book that deals with the historical-political and anthropological aspects of war in a unified manner, with attention to the contemporary situation, and which is therefore capable of reaching different audiences, of scholars and men and women of culture.