Bloody fighting between rival tribes and clans has existed since the dawn of Homo sapiens but
war as we knew it began to take the more organized forms we recognize today in the ancient Near
East starting in the vital region near the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers (modern Iraq) and
ultimately extending west to the Mediterranean Sea through what became the Holy Land of the
Bible a region eventually contested by Egypt the Roman Empire and others and extending
north and east into the mountains of Persia (modern Iran). In this informed and accessible
history Arthur Cotterell tells the story of how the story of the development of civilization
is also the story of the development of organized warfareThis story begins around 4 000 to 3
000 BC with the Sumerians one of the first dominant civilizations of fertile Mesopotamia and
their wars with their neighbors. The Sumerians eventually gave way to the Babylonians whose
period of dominance saw rudimentary great power? rivalries begin to form with the likes of
Egypt and the Hittites and the Battle of Kadesh (1274 BC). This period resolved with the fall
of Babylon and the rise of other powers ultimately the Persian Empire of Cyrus and Darius one
of the great ancient dynasties which battled the Greeks directly (as chronicled in Herodotus)
and indirectly as rival Persian factions battled each other (e.g. as chronicled in Xenophon's
account of the storied Ten Thousand).In the period that followed the Near East was dominated
by Alexander the Great whose legendary campaigns conquered Persia and ventured east into
modern India. This era saw the refinement of the Greek hoplite tactics that remained standard
for many hundreds of years. After Alexander the Great and the rise of the Seleucids and
Parthians where Persians once reigned the Roman Empire began to exert its power in the region
especially at its colonies in Judea and Syria.Spanning some 4 000 years and drawing anecdotes
and quotations from ancient sources Where War Began is a lively narrative of the origins of
war in a region that is still afflicted by war and that still shapes global politics.
