War and Peace: A Guide to Literature and New Media, Grades 4-8 (Children's and Young Adult Literature Reference Series) Book

This tiny book makes the case that violence is not a part of human nature. Defection is a huge problem for militaries, and despite how heavily soldiers are conditioned to kill, it is still extremely difficult for them to bring themselves to do so. The traumatic psychological effects on the soldiers after a war also indicate that what they do in war is against their instincts. In the dilemma between fight and flight, our instinct is flight. The only exception is when those we care about are in danger, which indicates that it's actually love and compassion that is human nature. In fact, it makes an interesting point, that most medals given to soldiers are not for acts of killing, but for acts of compassion. The military uses our instincts for love to incentivize soldiers to kill.

Being only 96 pages, this book cannot be a thorough treatment of why humans wage war on each other. One of the best such books I've read is The Lucifer Effect, which is much longer. Even with that book, one must also include a discussion of subjects such as economics and gender. An interesting case study would be the Army and Marines television ads. What messages do they explicitly or implicitly send prospective soldiers? That alone speaks volumes about why people go to war.

But if you're looking for a quick read to persuade you or someone else that peace really is possible, and that war is not part of human nature as is commonly believed, this book is excellent.