On Wars: A Discussion with Michael Mann

On Wars: A Discussion with Michael Mann

“Irrationality rules” in war, Michael Mann writes in his magisterial 2023 book, On Wars (Yale UP, 2023), a history that begins with the Roman Republic and ancient China and works its way through the world wars of the 20th century and up to present times. Mann is a Professor of Sociology Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles. His irrationality thesis, which posits that many wars are the product of miscalculations by over-confident rulers with little regard for their own people, offers an insightful and persuasive challenge to the Realist school on war, which stresses a rational aspect to the designs of war-making states. Then, too, Mann notes, wars can be driven by religious convictions and by a lust for revenge. Our conversation touches on the conflict in Israel-Palestine reignited by the Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians in October, 2023 as well as on the ongoing Russian-Ukraine war launched by Vladimir Putin in February, 2022. Veteran journalist Paul Starobin is a former Moscow bureau chief for Business Week and a former contributing editor of The Atlantic. He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and many other publications. His latest book, Putin’s Exiles: Their Fight for a Better Russia (Columbia Global Reports) will be published in January. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

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Lindsay Rae Smith Privette, "The Surgeon's Battle: How Medicine Won the Vicksburg Campaign and Changed the Civil War" (UNC Press, 2025)

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Robert Cribb and Sandra Wilson, "Twelve Japanese War Criminals and One Who Got Away" (U Hawaiʻi Press, 2026)

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Arthur W. Gullachsen, "The Defeat and Attrition of the 12. SS-Panzerdivision Hitlerjugend: Volume II: Operations Martlet, Epsom, Windsor and Charnwood 11 June-12 July 1944" (Casemate, 2026)

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Peter Mauch, "Tojo: The Rise and Fall of Japan's Most Controversial World War II General" (Harvard UP, 2026)

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Susanne Vees-Gulani, 'Icon Dresden: Baroque City, Air War Symbol, Political Token" (U Michigan Press, 2026)

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Sidra Hamidi, "After Fission: Recognition and Contestation in the Atomic Age" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

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