The Changing Character of War’s Conflict Platform team is delighted to host Mike Martin for a seminar on ‘Why We Fight’, drawing on his recently published book of the same name.

When we go to war, morality, religion and ideology often take the blame. Mike argues that the opposite is true: rather than driving violence, these things help to reduce it. While we resort to ideas and values to justify or interpret warfare, something else is really propelling us towards conflict: our subconscious desires, shaped by millions of years of evolution.

His previous books include An Intimate War: An Oral History of the Helmand Conflict and Crossing the Congo: Over Land and Water in a Hard Place, the latter of which was shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Adventure Travel Writing Award in 2016.