ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I’ve been talking about war for almost as long as I can remember with almost everyone I know, including family, friends, taxi drivers, and random people I meet at parties. I’d like to thank certain people who encouraged me to pursue this project and helped me formulate my thoughts (which is not to say that they will agree with everything in this book). They include my students and colleagues at Stevens Institute of Technology, and especially Jim McClellan, Harold Dorn, Garry Dobbins, and Lisa Dolling; my fellow science journalists David Berreby, George Johnson, Robin Lloyd, Madhusree Mukerjee, Phil Ross, Gary Stix, Karen Wright, Robert Wright, and Glenn Zorpette; and my buddies Chris Bremser, Robert Hutchinson, Jim O’Rourke, David Rothenberg, Tyler Volk, and David Zindell. Scientists and scholars who were especially helpful include Robert Carneiro, Napoleon Chagnon, Frans de Waal, Carol and Melvin Ember, Brian Ferguson, Randall Forsberg, Douglas Fry, Joshua Goldstein, Jonathan Haas, Thomas Homer-Dixon, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Melvin Konner, Steven LeBlanc, John Mueller, Keith Otterbein, Steven Pinker, Rudolph Rummel, Bruce Russett, Jeffrey Sachs, Kirkpatrick Sale, Robert Sapolsky, Gene Sharp, J. David Singer, Peter W. Singer, Robert Sussman, Erik Trinkaus, Edward Wilson, Richard Wrangham, Duane Friesen, Jim Juhnke, Julie Hart, Stan Eitzen, Patty Shelly, Paul Lewis, Wayne Wiens, Mark Jantzen, Brian Turner, Kirsten Zerger, Philip Zimbardo, and Howard Zinn.

I’ll always be grateful to Dave Eggers and everyone at McSweeney’s, and especially to Jesse Nathan—the toughest, hardest working, and best editor I’ve ever had—for believing in this book. Thanks also to Victoria Havlicek, Jordan Karnes, Jill Haberkern, Amanda Foushee, Charlotte Locke, Jennifer Florin, and Libby Wachtler for reading, proofing, fact checking, and otherwise helping to develop this book. I’m thankful most of all to Valerie Cates, whose faith in me—if not in the rest of humanity—gave me the strength to finish this book.