Most people would think that wars are launched because a country needs more territory, or because a country's borders are threatened, or because of appeasement. The real reason for war is that countries begin to feel that their honor is threatened; they feel that other nations are not giving them the worth and dignity they deserve, and so they take to the battlefield.

             On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace, Dr. Kagan is a classical scholar who hopes to get politicians and statesmen to understand history so as not to repeat it. He reminds that this was the intention of Thucydides of ancient Greece who wrote a history of the Peloponnesian Wars for "those who wish to have a clear understanding both of events in the past and of those in the future which will, in all human likelihood, happen again in the same or a similar way.".

             His book starts with the Peloponnesian War of the fifth century B.C.- -the subject of a four-volume history Kagan finished in 1987--and ends with the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. He also analyzes the Second Punic War of 218 to 201 B.C., World War I, and World War II. War usually arrives over long distances and long stretches of time. For instance, in 226 B.C. Rome was by far the most powerful state in the Western world, but it concluded a treaty with Carthage which was expanding its influence in what is now Spain. The treaty sought to preserve the peace. Eight years later, after many twisting and turnings and concessions by Rome, it led to war.

             Rome limited the expansion of Carthage to the area south of the Ebro River, and it looked like an order delivered by Rome, not a concession. Actually, Kagan writes, ".it was an attempt at appeasement in a moment of weakness and fear, the effect of which was to neither soothe nor deter but to inflame and encourage the Carthaginians." The aftermath included events, which almost destroyed Rome's fortunes: Hannibal's arrival at the head of a powerful army in Italy itself and the beginning of the 18-year Second Punic War.