history-society

We've covered a lot of ground: Pinker's optimism, Taleb's statistical critique, Galtung's structural violence, Collins's micro-sociology, democratic peace, nuclear deterrence. Now let's pull the threads together and ask: what can we actually conclude about violence and progress? The

On October 27, 1962, Soviet submarine B-59 was trapped in the Caribbean, hunted by American destroyers dropping practice depth charges. The submarine's crew, out of contact with Moscow, didn't know whether war had started. The captain ordered nuclear torpedoes armed. To launch required agreement from three

In 1795, Immanuel Kant proposed that republican governments would naturally tend toward peace. Republics, he argued, require citizen consent for war—and citizens, who bear the costs of fighting, would rarely consent. Autocrats face no such check; they can declare war without personal sacrifice. Two centuries later, political scientists noticed

Here's a puzzle: humans are supposedly violent animals with long histories of warfare, murder, and brutality. But watch two angry people in an argument. Their faces are red, their fists are clenched, their words are vicious—and yet violence almost never happens. They posture, threaten, and bluff. Then

In 1904, Halford Mackinder stood before the Royal Geographical Society and made a claim that would shape a century of strategy: "Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; who rules the World-Island commands the World." This wasn't poetry. It

In 1532, Francisco Pizarro captured the Incan emperor Atahualpa with 168 Spanish soldiers. The Inca Empire had millions of subjects and a sophisticated administration. Spain was a small European kingdom an ocean away. How did 168 men conquer an empire? The standard answer: guns, germs, and steel. But behind that