This book is more an intellectual detective story than a narrative history. It surveys all the international wars fought since 1700, and searches for revealing patterns and clues which offer new solutions to the puzzle of war and peace.

Hundreds of authors have written hundreds of books about what causes wars to begin and what causes them to end. In examining many of these widely accepted theories of international conflict, Blainey finds that many of them prove to be contradictory or completely without any basis in fact.

One conclusion of this book is that the study of history offers invaluable lessons toward understanding the present and hopefully toward altering the future. The causes of war in this era of intercontinental missiles are much the same as the causes of war in the era of cavalry charges. Wars usually begin when two nations disagree on their relative strength, and wars usually cease when the fighting nations agree on their relative strength. War and peace are not opposites; they are alternating phases of relationships in the international arena.

Blainey presents the theory that peace is not the normal state of affairs. Since A.D. 901, Russia has been at war in forty-six of every hundred years. England has been at war in fifty-six of every hundred years, and Spain has experienced even more years of war.

To accept faulty explanations of war is to retard the search for the real solution. This book attempts to speed our progress toward solving the biggest crime in the world : war.