next this week's encore booknotes presentation features historian John Keegan on his book a history of warfare the goal of this book was to summarize the story of war over the past forty thousand years on this Veterans Day weekend encore book notes presents this hour-long conversation originally aired in May of 1994 John Keegan author of a history of warfare would you start working on this book hello forty years ago when did you first get interested in warfare I couldn't help being interested right here fifty years ago when I was 10 years old the place was alive with the apparatus of war we were all interested if he were ten years old the streets were crammed with many American soldiers soldiers any Harbin mainly American soldiers American equipment American aeroplanes I've had quite a lot of British aeroplanes - but torn soon where we are now was almost an American town in april/may and the beginning of June 1944 they were waiting to go to d-day and this was the this was one of the main American concentration areas where do you remember from those days jeeps jeeps of the thing I remember most because nobody thing that had ever seen anything like a Jeep and if you were ten years old it made an even stronger impression every ten-year-old English boy wanted to have a drive in a jeep and I did get a drive in a jeep - which was a tremendous excitement but I suppose it's very difficult not to impose basically if your historian not to impose your subsequent memories on what you'd actually do remember but I'd the Americans would if I think they were cause different to twelve English people but they were even different to English children then they were American they weren't they were much more extroverted and and good-natured and everything let's Americans are suppose to be that that is was very strong impression from those times well what was this area used for as far as staging was concerned but why was the military there was an enormous hospital yeah is he thinks the the everybody all the commanders Eisenhower Montgomery they all expected very heavy casualties on d-day they thought there would be tens of thousands of wounded on the beaches and that they'd have to be treated here back here in Britain said the Americans because this was an American area they built an enormous hospital here and it still exists and it is Torrance main hospital and its shares what American prefabrication of fifty years ago could could do and it was a supply area and there were airfields there were glider airfields for taking the the the glider board infantry to to their whereabouts are some areas where the 82nd money one Airborne Division's were going I think there was just everything where they I would have to reconstruct some sort of map which probably difficult to find ideas but to a child's eye there was everything how many books have you written accounting sleight of works about 28 affairs which ones done the best face of battle much I'd published in 1976 in a curious way it's always cool the classics I suppose it is a classic what I put it was not a difficult book to write I knew exactly what I was going to say before I began it just came out it was not a difficult book to write in the way that this was because I was trying to put so much that I know into such a small space in a history your books do better in Great Britain or in the United States the United States without 80 question except curiously for this one this one's been enormous is successful in Britain and there's one on a major literary prize but I have a great American readership it's not the only reason I did love the United States but it's one of the reasons why do you think he appealed to Americans I did know I went to America when I was very young and I've been there many many times in my life and I think I've got a feel for America it's certainly a country that I deeply devoted to tremendously interested in that's not really an answer to the question I think Americans like they like the practical they like the human and I like both those things myself and I try and put them into my books I like to try and pick problems to pieces in a practical way I'll also pick them to pieces in a human way and I think that's paths it's not a deliberate formula but it may be a formula that appeals to American readers you can't pick up many of your books without learning that you write that you have a limp well it's getting worse what's it from it's from orthopedic tuberculosis which is a lot thank goodness is a vanished disease now nobody gets it but it was very common when I was young I text text the bone joints and it leaves you damaged in some way or other when did you contract the disease about thirteen just the end of the war and just before they invented the drugs which cure the disease about two years before doctors look at me and they say you were unlucky I went you and I said yes another two years and I would have been cured what impact has it had on your life I don't know cure I'm beginning to regret it now because I am getting rather lame in in my okay to be sixty I guess yeah and the last year it's been a nuisance there hasn't been a nuisance the rest of the times but hasn't suggest affected my life at all and in an odd way getting a very strange teenage years because I was in flat on my back in bed the year after year and in Ward full of young men who come back from the war I didn't regret that in an odd way I didn't have get a proper education but I did get a strange sort of view on life and I think people have it's commonly said that people who've been ill in childhood and have had an upset education never really regret that they do unless they were absolutely deprived of course I wasn't deprived but it's I think it's so I think it's a spur to a written not not that one should claim originality but I think it it means that you don't look at the world in the way that other people do and perhaps if you're inclined to be a writer that's a help why do you mention it in your books sorry why do you mention the lamp in the book because I'm a military historian and I've never been to war and there must be some explanations that I've never been in the army I've never worn uniform I've never been in the Navy or the Air Force so I have to have a reason I have a very good reason which is that the medical officer the the army recruiting center took one look at me and signed me off I mean I'm completely unfit for military service when did you know then that you wanted to write about war but don't know I think that it was this wartime thing of being here just before d-day and these extraordinary things happening I was through white people interested in history little boys some little boys are interested in history some are I was I'd always been interested hmm they're from five or six I can remember liking sort of child's history books more than the other sort of child's book the parents to talk history my father was very interested indeed and had been a soldier in the First World War and that was an influence but besides that I can't really explain I you have to choose a subject eventually if you go to university which I D in Dublin that i trace history and was I was what I was interested in and then you had to choose a special subject a major I suppose and I chose military history because that seemed the most interested thing on offer and then I got stuck in a groove where'd you guys cool uh Oxford what school which College a bagel now is there something special about Barry oh that does deals with history it's got some very distinguished historians and it's also got a very strong pacifist tradition an anti-war tradition too so that made me a bit of a an oddity are you a pacifist 95% what's the five there are certain wicked people in the world that you can't deal with except by force the most wicked in your lifetime Hitler without dart I think that I think Hitler was seriously seriously wicked not mad Christian a lot of the Bolsheviks were simply dreadful too much they took must terrible the the great men of power who seek to change the nation's they belong who usually are pretty terrible people that 5% then allows what if you it allows the use of four extreme force in a measured way if possible in a measured way in order to cartel or I'll extinguish the activities of these wicked man were talking a man you have a couple of figures in your book the history a history of warfare by the way just a quick question why didn't you call it the history of work I didn't think there is the history I think that can only be history is each one of a tool to be called a history because ultimately it's a personal view you pointed out early in the book that some 20 million people had died in the First World War and another 50 million in the Second World War how well in the first world war they were mainly killed by direct and attraction there wasn't much collateral death as it's come to be called AI bombing or all civilian deaths as a byproduct of fighting Omaha it was people in uniform that got killed the that probably 10 million uniformed it's a bit difficult to get it quite right the others were the victims of hardship privation starvation disease was huge for example influenza epidemic at the end of the First World War which would have come any ha but had a greater effect because there was such malnutrition particularly in in in Central Europe that's a moral one I'm afraid in the Second World War there are a lot of collateral deaths ie what 2 million Germans killed by bombing probably a million Japanese killed by both civilians were talking about civilians killed by bombing civilians find themselves in the direct line of fire for the first time in in the Wolfire of civilized nations raelia and then there was a lot of again a lot of pride the death through privation malnutrition and more later disease but also of course a lot of atrocity of course there was the deliberate genocide of of the hip Hitler genocide policy against the Jews against various other nationalities nine oranges who were on his black ears but there were also there was all there also the atrocities of partisan warfare particularly in Eastern Europe and in China I think you probably you'd probably get 10 or 15 million battle deaths and the rest would be collateral deaths civilian deaths what's the a the years range for your book from whilst at an age to modern times which is how many years well I Homo sapiens you and me Hemi sapiens sapiens has been about 440 thousand years and that's a it's the last 40 thousand years really has there ever been a book written like this one or two but not many people have had a go at the whole thing it is it is a bit arrogant arrogant oh yes I think so why do you say Erin well you have you're pretending that you inevitably you're pretending that you know most world history which I clearly did you have chapters that say flesh iron and stone how did you block out that book I blocked it out over a very long period thinking about it thinking about I wanted I suppose I eventually wanted to write to try and put this extraordinary phenomenon I mean men killing other men and sometimes other women to not not very very infrequently women except on the home of course but uh not you know not for public purposes are very rarely women killing women men men killing other men read it is extraordinary phenomenon why does why does it happen I wanted done hollows had gone on and have the latest changed on clearly the methods of change but have the latest train III I want I think I've wanted to do it I think I know I wanted to do it before I knew I wanted to do it I've been eventually I knew I wanted to do it and that meant beginning beginning right at the beginning and it also meant having some means of organizing it I think you can't do it chronologically if you start at the beginning and go on to the end century by century the book could be that thick you had to have some way of dropping it down and so I in the end hit on the idea of what was the dominant technology really it's not a technology book but I really in the end that I thought that was the only way of simplifying organizing you said stay in weapons and then there's this long period when when weapons have appeared but the the real instrument war is the horse from about a thousand BC to a thousand ad get longer maybe they're what two thousand years when the horse peoples were the great warriors of the world and dominated them dominated every bit of the world where you could keep large horse urns luckily you can't in Western Europe but elsewhere they dominated where do you find or if there is such a place the bulk of the background material needed to write some look like a book like this well the years I taught at Santos which is Britain's West Point which has the most wonderful I mean truly the best wonderful library it's a library whose origins go back into the 18th it's housed in a very beautiful building it has very liberal rules about borrowing and working and that's one of the ideas as far as I'm concerned the perfect library and most most of what I know in life I learnt in the sound house library where is Santa it's just outside London about 20 miles west of Heathrow to orientate American travelers to this country how big is it it's it's it was built in the adjust at the end of the 18th 18th beginning the 19th century on a very beautiful piece of parkland it's looks like a gentleman's mansion the old building it looks as if I don't have fallow deer grazing in there in the park it almost does not quite it's got a bug it's about quota the size of West Point it has less than a thousand cadets whereas of course West Point now has over 4,000 cadets and it is not as if it's look the West Point has a simply enormous training area in which it sits Santos has gradually lost that as Londoners crept out towards it but it remains of curacy a tranquil oasis in spreading suburbia how long did you teach there 25 years very far too long nobody should teach anywhere for 25 years but what did you teach at military history exclusively again labor you should teach military history for 25 years I did why did you do so impressed as I love the place I like the people it's one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen on earth curiosity it has got a strange theatrical quality to it my children were very happy that we had a eventually we graduated as people do from from very humble Marren quarters we went up the scale eventually we lived in a very nice house the children we had four children who grew up there and I think they loved the surroundings my wife didn't but she gave him because the children liked it and I liked it and soon I stayed but I kept on segued myself as time went on I'm I must not I must not stay here forever otherwise I shall become a vegetable and I think I nearly did when did you leave in 1986 then what well the friend of mine who fell a military historian although he was he was an extremely successful well-known journalist called Max Hastings telephoned me one day to say that he'd been offered the editorship of the Daily Telegraph and did did he think did I think he should take it so I said though well max you really think you need to ask me that question and anyhow a conversation developed in the course of which he said and if you'd like to be the defense editor when I get to be editor why don't you come so I said yes and he said what I get to see the new owner and I'll telephone you in two days and he did and he said if you want to come do Carville and that was the end of it you're sitting in a room that's a couple of hours from London do you operate from here as the Daily Telegraph defense correspondent I go to London about two or three days a week and but now of course we're also electronic that you can sit you can sit in your house in the West Country and type into the paper or fax into the paper it's just an impediment at all now this book a history of warfare is targeted to what audience who do you envision buying this book well I hope my fellow historians like it and some do and some don't but I've never really written my fellow historians what I've always wanted to do is write the sort of book which Fela historians would have to take seriously but which was really a book for the educated general reader who would like to be informed to have his view of the world enlarged about a particular subject and I think this is the highest of all historical callings I utterly I always despised but I think I do despise the the direction that a university history writing has taken in which unknown enormous effort in years of work of Givens writing books which really only interest a few hundred others address problems which fenja a few dozen others are aware of as problems at all and increasingly use language which perhaps any other academics can understand and that seems to me to be a perversion of the historians cooling the historian point rightful historian ought to be an educated person writing for other educated people about something which they don't know about but wish to know about in a way that they can understand you put the emphasis a couple of times on educated what do you mean educated I suppose I would mean what Jefferson meant I I've got a rather eighteenth-century view of what being educated is which is having read the major works of literature having having an understanding of the broad periods of history and which the world's past is divided perhaps speaking another language or at least being aware of other languages and having some competence I don't think education having some special competence that often because there's hope to get with it too but I don't think education I don't look to find an educated person in the ranks of university graduates necessarily some of the enterprise to educated people I know never be narrow University you had a book a couple years ago the history of world war two yeah was that a different audience you were writing for them than this one not for me in fact my publishers then rather marketed it as such I said I went complained because it's so little normalness numbers but I was I did think it was aimed at of perhaps or slightly I didn't say narrower market but they let me one of what I think is this when I saw what the book looked like it didn't seem to be the sort of manuscript I'd written had looked a more popular book than I had intended it to be Clausewitz hmm the name is almost on every page in hello how come well I think perhaps I may have overdone that a bit but there's all full German who died in 1838 born 1780 [Music] he's absolutely dominates the way his military history is written and what's worse state military policy is formed he relentlessly argues that war is the is the military is well the famous raises war is the extension of policy by other means of war as a form is a a form of political activity I did of course sometimes it is but sometimes it isn't I didn't think that what's going on in Bosnia at the moment is is political activity it's partly political but it's partly atavistic as well people are behaving in a in a in a way which doesn't bear political explanation but it does bear out for a logical explanation or cultural explanation what is Ana visting me going back to one's earliest forefathers I think I think the Mongols were all the steppe Turks who who created the world with step Turks who created their part which the Muslims in Bosnia belong would understand what's going on because they were violent cruel clever cunning people for backtick Clausewitz who was he he was a Prussian son of a clergyman born 8 1788 served in Prussian army captured by the French changed sides when Napoleon invaded Prussia went to fight for the Russians never made a great success his military career he was a difficult cantankerous man he was regarded with suspicion because he thought for the Russians even though if that was in the cause of Prussian independence and he was sort of pensioned off said to the staff cottage to live out his days where he sat down and wrote this great I mean it has to be said great theoretical work called on wall which was influenced every soldier and statesman interest in war for the last hundred years recent times also is taught and go into any of the United States Armed Forces staff colleges and pick up the a common curriculum and you will see the name class of its half a dozen times and they'll because it's discussion of the the applicability of class fits to modern times very little questioning of whether Kassovitz was right or wrong has roots is pretty well still gospel in-service schools in may in the English and German speaking world is he worth it I think he I think he well what I'd like to say is that he doesn't describe war but he perverts politics in the beginning of the book you dedicate this book to winter Bridgman who was he ancestor I don't think perhaps a direct ancestor I think more kinsman my mother's family will call Bridgman they came from Southwest Ireland but they weren't the sort of Irish who for originally English the so called ascendancy they they came as conquerors and they were given land my the other half may the keikain half of course with a lot over there in the first place and who on the hill got them taken away from them why did you pick him International sort of I wouldn't call in a mercenary but it's international professional officer who sailed his services he died in the service of the French there are no long people liking in the book I think he's international professional military experts are numeracy significant in the in the history of warfare particular in carrying skills technologies too but particularly skills from one society to another and transforming the military did you say in the in the introduction of the book that war is wholly unlike diplomacy or politics because it must be fought by men whose values and skills are not those of politicians or diplomats explain well I think first of all people who undergo professional military training like West pointers and people who care to serve to us do turn out different the the it's a more complete training education there isn't really a good English where there's a very good French where a French their formation I think that people who go to West Point or Santos who literally are formed or untransformed and they become different from others they they have automatic reactions of duty and meeting standards which the rest of us don't that's one thing the other thing is I think that inside this group there is and you don't necessarily find them inside the professional military group you can find them outside too but inside this professional military group you do find people who just you cannot imagine in any other setting they just seem to be warriors and they seem to be recognized by the others as natural warriors it's a bit like saying asking asking how to identify them as a bit like asking how to identify supremely handsome or beautiful human beings you can't but when you see them you know them they're there I think if you could observe them in action you would understand and be able to describe but because of the secret nature of warfare you can't but they are like there's sportsmen who can't be anything but sportsmen and who you can identify because you can see them running faster than anybody else or or playing games better than anyone you are right below that say war is wholly unlike diplomacy or politics because it must be fought by men whose values and skills are not those of politicians or diplomats no what's the difference between the values of the politicians diplomats and soldiers IO soldier it's a necessary quality of a diplomat or or a politician that he will compromise and indeed we we on the hill don't want to be led by uncompromising politicians or diplomats they'd get you into the most terrible trouble on the other hand soldiers among themselves when committed to a task can't compromise because they may that is that compromise it's the opposite on the battlefield it's compromise its compromise which will get you into trouble it's only unrelenting devotion to the standards of duty and courage absolute loyalty to others not letting the task go until it's been done that will get you through that's why they're different when I ask you about some Wars that the Americans have been involved in and get your analysis on what was the Vietnam War all about as relates as it relates to history I would never oppose the Vietnam War I thought that the Americans were right to do it I think they fought it in the wrong way but I think they were right to to oppose the attempt spy gear by Ho Chi Minh and gap to to make the whole of Vietnam into a Marxist Society and looking to looking at what's happened to the country since I'd still believed that it was right to try and stop them I think it was a [Music] responsible effort by the United States they fought the war in the wrong way they fought the war with in particular that what was wrong about it was a bearing and sent soldiers there for one yeah say it couldn't be run as a proper war it was it was run with one eye on public opinion the whole time let me go back to your thing about being a pacifist is that your five percent coming out yes I I I wouldn't have felt it was the end of the world of them yet that war hadn't been fought it's not that kind of war I don't think as a war like fighting hit but I think it was a a a correct war rightful and I it's it had indirect effects of the greatest importance as well I think it demonstrated to the Russians of the Russian leadership of the last year's of communism that the Americans were serious when they said that they opposed problem ISM and I think it therefore contributed to eventually to the end of the Cold War in the fall of the fall before all of Commodus regimes all over Central and Eastern Europe we ask you about terms did the Americans lose the Vietnam War ultimately yes I think they did did generals zap win yes oh he certainly won how did they do it against what was rather expensive military machine they did it because they did not send young men to war for one year they sent them south 50,000 I think it was every year they sent fresh I may have got that figure wrong it may have been 250,000 every year they could send out to their young manhood they could send that number south and they didn't come back until the war was over they either got killed or they went off it was extraordinary effort of national determination it was really a national determination against only semi national determination why was general Zapp successful with the French same thing well then he was up curacy in some ways against a more purposeful army because the French the French did not gave one year they went for long tours but in the end of course they were outnumbered the the the French could a name they couldn't send conscripts to Vietnam they could only send regular soldiers and mercenaries from Africa and Lady Africa you talked a lot about Mao Zedong in the book but don't mention we do mention don't mention a lot about Ho Chi Minh well how does he fit in in world history I didn't gave it I didn't mention how Chi Minh and yeah because they all say much the pupils of Marseilles turn and then I felt it wasn't [Music] said what might Satan's particular methods were you didn't need to have more examples but say turn had this extraordinary idea of politicizing little sort of militarizing politicizing a militarizing very ordinary humble people who stood on the margins of Chinese society and of attacking the centres of Chinese from far away by indirect means whether the thing would have worked if the Japanese had a lot of stuff acknowledged of Chiang kai-shek and the Chinese national army before potato got going in 1946 I don't know I suspect that mouth there is a great deal of his success to the Japanese but even if he even if that's not even if that is true he nevertheless his message was sufficiently correct and certainly sufficiently powerful to do enormous damage elsewhere outside China in in Vietnam for example and then later in North Africa in their black Africa going back to class words if you would have found Hitler in his den reading about war would he be would he have read class words in in his last will and testament written in the bunker in Berlin with Russian shells thudding overhead he mentioned only one name and it was the name of class words now if you could see you know when he was alive Mao Zedong sitting somewhere reading about war who would he be reading I don't think he would I think he'd be reading the great Chinese classics um su & Co who say different things I mean close buds have done was not classified soon he said what the great Chinese classics have always said that is better not to fight that the clever man achieves his ends without violence that a battle delayed is better than a battle fought etc etc home in the China the Chinese have a different conception of war they in which time rather than action is the is the defining dimension who is Sen su o he may not have exist it's a very ancient Chinese writer of two thousand years BC but he he's the first to have codified this Chinese attitude towards wall which is immensely formidable if it's opposed by Western methods which always looking for decisions results things time is precious now if we could find you and your den and your happiest of moves reading what would you be reading I would not military history I only do that for work I would be reading my favorite English authors and American authors who are they depends where I am when I was at Princeton as a fellow in 1984 by myself my wife and children were lamenting that and I became afflicted by cultural home sick sea sickness and I read the whole of German Austrian in about two or three weeks a game but I wouldn't say I read like Jane Austen in England touristy because I live in such from Jane Austen surroundings I don't need to tronic particularly the Anthony Trollope particularly the church novels for all the political holes Kipling to whom I'm absolutely devoted I think is one of the supreme geniuses of English literature [Music] for pure relaxation when just to sort of a sort of tree tied up forward to which will make me feel better in life John Buchan Americans [Music] Hemmingway melville are banking on Melville as a poet Whitman Ave here on Whitman has appeared the the homeless of the 30 states like Steinbeck I'm there's New Yorker short piece writer whom I adore called Joseph Mitchell whose works have just being collected and reissued he's live cooled up at the old hotel I think extraordinary pictures of American Shana life if you're reading military history as he there's an American called strong will Martin who's only ever written one book who I have no musty admirer I wish he'd write his second book first book is one of the greatest influences on me that there's ever been it's called gunpowder and galleys and it's about Mediterranean naval warfare in the sixteenth century absolutely astonishing book what about class woods Sun Tzu Karl Marx hmm just read them because I have to that's work no I I very much Barbara Tuchman as you know the guns of August I think she's a wonderful writer at the sort of level I admire sort of an expert who writes rather educated people that are not quite expert level I think that's tremendously important go back to the the pacifist thing we took a tour of the period War Museum in London and our guide was a passage you write about military history in Europe acid not quite not quite five billion you're the defense editor of The Daily Telegraph what's the politics what's the what's the what's the slant of the daily it's the conservative miss pett I mean it is all there not officially the the party newspaper of the Conservative Party it is it is regarded as being the the Ark of the Covenant of conservative opinion in this country does that make you a conservative I did that conservative in the last two or three elections I have lose rated conservative I the the alternatives aren't much of an attraction at the moment in this country but I'm but I'm not a member of the Conservative Party correct the image then the the image of a conservative is pro-military shop does that make them I mean the American conservatives hearing you say how could he be a pessimist almost and be a conservative center no difficulty at all I I think that have Baba even a pessimist I think should at la the military virtuous should admire and indeed the best pacifists have those virtues themselves self application and willingness if necessary to sacrifice their lives what they believe I mean that is the ultimate military virtue of that I will lay down my life if called upon to do so it's and duties about obligate that's ultimately what makes when I say soldiers are different that's what ultimately makes so does different but I went choose whether I will or not they doubt my life I have already promised that I will it is for swarm it is given away I will say our soldiers mortgaged his life he said here is my life and I can only have it back again when the end of my service comes and I [Music] salute for the last time and take my picture I think the pacifist is the same except perhaps he's his willingness to sacrifice his life never goes this is your 20th book you say where do you put it on the list of your personal favorites I enjoyed writing it a normalcy more than anything I've ever written when I write the face of battle I felt I knew what the only time in my life I knew what Kipling meant when he said that a sort of diamond a sort of spirit descends and you'd the book your pan moves in an in an unconscious way I didn't feel that for this it was an effort but I still enjoyed writing it very much indeed how do you write now increasingly by pen I've got every sort of writing instrument named forever a word processor to to a fountain pen and a marvelously unreliable for TRL portable typewriter which I do like writing on but I increasingly I write trust with a fountain pen in ink on lines paper compared to what earlier I used to type on my on my portable I did have an electric typewriter once which was a monstrosity why'd you change I sorry to bring it back here and I just get back ache now if I typed for long periods it's easier - it's easier to write with a pen where do you write in the room at the head of the stairs on the second floor of my house in the country looking out over a very beautiful garden my wife's created towards the edge of the chalk plains of Salisbury playing that an Iron Age fault which was put dug by the Celtic people of Britain they and perhaps late century before Caesar conquered the island oh he didn't talk before Augustus conquered the islands in 43 ad does it make a difference to you where you are yes I'm very conscious for that in front of the house just a few hundred yards away runs a primitive trackway called the hard way which alfred the great brought his army ax from from somerset to fight the Danes at F and Doon in the ninth century and that means a great deal to me Wendy right all dead ten o'clock in the morning till 7:30 at night with a short break for lunch my wife is a writer to say we don't she doesn't object too much gets a bit what is she right she writes civilized books biographies of she's ready to biography of the wife of what compares of Gustav Marla it was a very strong woman in her in right what's her name Alma mala my read is Suzanne Keegan and published in the state yes Alma her life of alma mater was a great success and he's now writing the life of the painter Oskar Kokoschka who was one of Alma malas many lovers where did you two meet in the house of a friend when he was 22 and I was 24 what was the attraction he's very very beautiful what about the writing skills that's a complete surprise to me and to her I think she just started to do it one day and hasn't stopped do you ever write together and that's good she has a road we have a long long thin house and she has a room at one end and I have a room at the other end children for children who have ripped to say all of marinus in our sort of trade my elder daughter was a journalist for the Conde Nast organization married an American my eldest son is a publisher for Simon & Schuster my younger son who is a twin is a journalist and his twin sister is an actress I'm afraid that we're all in the words business and what is your future publishing plans in our jail you with conifer on a contract basis I had said I did in fact have a car there heard that this was not a two book contract but III think there's no doubt I will publish with a publisher of them the next time round I think they'd well I think they'd have something to say to me if I did [Music] I'm intent right the author who we all there's drawn to carry as a friend of mine and he said after reading that there's nothing in it about intelligence military intelligence Cestius and that's planted the seed I've seen this books that I'm not sure you want to hear this they're little stacks of these books in stores in the United States assuming that a lot of them been sold before I got there this seems to have been marketed a lot at least around the Washington area how's it selling very well I think I hope what does that mean to you well how many does it have to sell for you to say that was a good one well the the second world war sold in the United States in hardback about between 80 and 90 thousand and that from history book is very very good indeed if that tells us well I shall be very pleased could you make a living just writing books oh I do well you mentioned that you were at The Daily Telegraph is that don't you do that because I would get mad if i sat at home in the country and write books or my wife would kill me um I mean I I work for the Daily Telegraph because I find it extremely interesting to do so but I am a professional book writer you tell us in the conclusion of your book that that future when it comes to warfare is brighter can you explain that and I maybe misquoting you but I go I did I did I did I write that two years ago I don't like to see what's happening around me ready I think the world's caught I think the world's taken a very nasty turn in two years I did like what's happening I think that will may be a way out of the North Korean situation but I don't like it I think that they have to be prevented from becoming a nuclear power that's the best pressing of all problems not the moment the situation on the fringe of yo Christian and Muslim lands running from Bosnia into the Caucasus is extremely unpleasant and there's I don't seem I don't think we've seen even the middle of it yet certainly not the end I think that black Africa is clean it terrifying for black Africa I didn't think it won't affect the rest of the world unfortunately I mean I think that's part of the tragedy that the black Africa can become a mild strom of warring tribes without the outside world and needing to feel that it feeling the need to do anything about it except of course for the arm salesman to sell arms into into the situation there's the the layers of the three great areas of unpleasant as such I identify them which I think all got worse since I since I finished rather optimistically two years ago what caused you to finish up domestically in the first place well I finished writing that book in 1992 three two and we were still very much celebrating the end of the Cold War the more civil war in Bosnia had not broken out there was nothing like the trouble of their wall street in South Africa we'd had a very successful conclusion to the Gulf War which looked as if the UN was all there not strictly a gulf war are not strictly a although the golf balls it was not strictly a UN war it was fort nevertheless with UN approval everything looked extremely positive for the future of peacekeeping by the responsible prize and it looked too as if Russia was moving from from from its former unhappy it's just stage into one of equal stability with the other large parts of the world so I think it was possible to be optimistic I'm still Oh father fundamentally impossible I'm that's an optimistic but they've been pessimistic erosions of my optimism let me ask you this though Abby you you wrote a book here a history of warfare mmm you've written 20 books on history you've go back 4,000 what is it about today that ever made you think there was a shot at this thing worldwide long term peace because everybody forgets about nuclear weapons I mean it says its main I mean you know the code was laid on a Berlin War lady came down in 1989 everybody knew about nuclear weapons in 1989 1994 they all seem to have forgotten about them I mean they're still there they're still threatened anybody who tries to fight a really big serious war with nuclear retaliation that's the fundamental basis for either genuine optimism or else hopeless pessimism well I'm not prepared to be hopelessly pessimistic I didn't think man's that stupid I didn't I didn't think we're even I I can't see any I can't visualize as the situation in which we need new car sells into extinction I think we'd find some way of not doing there and that being the case nuclear weapons must be seen as a means of stopping big Wars and that is a great relief to mankind sitting back early 1900 would you've ever envisioned 70 million people killed in two world wars oh not in 1900 I think in between the wars and twenties and thirties you hang on to hope for the world with very very sort of fragile fingernails man got into the habit of killing people in large numbers by pretty brutal direct methods in the in the 20th century a civilized man did and nuclear weapons said right Bevo unlike this look what's gonna happen but near the end if if you had to pick a couple people in history that you'd like to sit down and talk to military people leaders of military offensives and all who would you pick wedington the first you the great Duke because he or they're an amazingly successful soldier never really defeated he had a a extremely disdainful attitude to war rarely I think he thought it was a necessary evil he happened to be very good at it but I don't think he he didn't glory and more he thought war was pretty horrible but sometimes you had to do it and the I would say he was a superb I think of a fascinating example of a particular human type he was a sort of the ultimate ideal of the Western gentleman the other would be Eisenhower who I addressed simply because I admire him enormous as a human being and he's if Wellington epitomizes the sort of English gentleman I'm Eisenhart epitomizes the natural American gentleman the farm boy whoo-hoo whether with a sort of religious upbringing deeply religious mother who who never less is sort of quite a character small-town boy gazed West Point acquires an education and then through responsibilities becomes an extraordinary as strongly it sort of agent of power throughout the world and yet never loses touch with his would think deeply good man and good man who exercise power are ready the nice fascinating hall people John Keegan we're out of time thank you author of a history of warfare thank you very much indeed a history of warfare was originally published in hardcover in 1993 and is still available in both hardcover and paperback every weekend book TV brings you an encore presentation of c-span booknotes program encore book notes airs Saturdays at 7:00 p.m. and Sundays at 11:00 a.m. Eastern here on c-span - next weekend editorial cartoonist her block also known as her block about his latest work a cartoonists life it reprises 250 of his best cartoons were in 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