Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology Online

Extract

Fights of one kind or another show up in archaeological and anthropological studies of early societies as well as later ones. Usually limited to ritualized encounters, these conflicts seem more like sport than anything else; two groups of men fight, the action ending when someone is hurt.If war means using weapons deliberately to kill, in order to gain food, booty, land, honor, or other prizes, then war appears to start 12,000–15,000 years ago, probably around the time of the onset of agriculture and the settled communities that accompanied it. Surely the idea of taking food and other things from people who have them would occur to people more than once. Fighting strategies and weapons developed early on, as did the killing of civilians as well as warriors.Historians can tell us about wars among and within tribes, city-states, empires, and nations. What qualifies, though, as a world conflict? Here it is suggested that a world conflict must involve at least three continents and have an outcome with serious effects in much of the world. World War I mainly involved Western Europe and the United States. By contrast, World War II included the Pacific, Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America. It concluded with the end of most of colonialism that had flourished for up to two centuries; the Cold War, which lasted almost half a century; escalation in the deadliness of weapons systems; and ... log in or subscribe to read full text