Rivalry and the Roar of Guns

The Dark Path By Williamson Murray Yale, 488 pages, 40

- BRENDAN SIMMS

WAR, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, "is the father of all things." Over the centuries, the conflicts between states have indeed brought about all sorts of changes in societies and civilizations: cultural, economic and, not least, political. These changes, in turn, have enabled states to wage war with ever greater ferocity and efficacy. As Charles Tilly, the 20th-century social theorist, put it: "War made the state and the state made war." In "The Dark Path," Williamson Murray traces the story of war making from the 16th century to the present day, registering, as his subtitle has it, "the structure of war and the rise of the West." Murray, who died last year at the age of 81, was a professor emeritus at Ohio State University and an expert on modern military history. One of his earliest books, "Strategy for Defeat" (1983), took up the role of the Luftwaffe in World War II. He would go on to address a range of topics in more than a dozen books, including "The Air War in the Persian Gulf" (1995) and "Military Adaptation in War" (2011). Among much else, "The Dark Path" can be seen as the culmination of a lifetime of scholarly research and sustained study.

Murray says that, until 1500 or so, the West had no great claim to military superiority. For centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, Europe was beset not by war as we understand the term but by "the meanderings of powerful tribes bent on loot, rapine, slaughter, and land." It was only in the early modern period that there began a competition among "the ruthless and at times murderous states that made up the Western world." It was this competition, Murray says, that drove the West forward, requiring constant innovation and adaptation.

It was one reason why Asia and Africa-"the rest"-fell behind the West and, incidentally, why "The Dark Path" is so Western-centric.