On the Origins of War

This book is a multidisciplinary essay on the origins of war, a follow-up to Coleman’s Blood of the Beloved (2007). That earlier work used a novel approach to the question of, “Why war?” Presented as a Socratic dialogue between an archaeology student and his professor in the year AD 2793, it invites readers to overhear their discussion after an imaginary 28th century “reenactment convention” examining violence and war in “primitive times,” namely, the 21st century and earlier. In that book, Coleman makes it clear that while many of the people she writes about were actual historical figures, her book’s imaginary premise makes it “a work of fiction” (p. vi).