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This book reconsiders key episodes of military history from the point of view of economics. For example, when looked at as a question of sheer cost, the building of castles in the High Middle Ages seems almost inevitable: though stunningly expensive, a strong castle was far cheaper to maintain than a standing army. The book also reexamines the strategic bombing of Germany in World War II and provides insights into France's decision to develop nuclear weapons. Drawing on these examples and more, it suggests lessons for today's military, from counterterrorist strategy and military manpower planning to the use of private military companies in Afghanistan and Iraq. In bringing economics into assessments of military history, the book also turns its interdisciplinary lens on the mercenary arrangements of Renaissance Italy; the wars of Marlborough, Frederick the Great, and Napoleon; and Ulysses S. Grant's campaigns in the Civil War.

Why do nations choose to fight certain wars and not others? How do we bring ourselves to believe that the sacrifice of our troops is acceptable? For most, the answers to these questions are tied to struggles for power or resources and the machinations of particular interest groups. This book argues that this realist answer to the age-old “why war?” question is insufficient. Instead, it suggests that every war has its roots in the ways we tell and interpret stories. This book decodes the cultural logic of the narratives that justify military action. Each nation makes use of binary codes—good and evil, sacred and profane, rational and irrational, to name a few. These codes, in the hands of political leaders, activists, and the media, are deployed within four different types of narratives—mundane, tragic, romantic, or apocalyptic. With this cultural system, the book is able radically to recast our “war stories” and show how nations can have vastly different understandings of crises as each identifies the relevant protagonists and antagonists, objects of struggle, and threats and dangers. The large-scale sacrifice of human lives necessary in modern war requires an apocalyptic vision of world events. In the case of the War in Iraq, for example, the United States and Britain replicated a narrative of impending global doom from the Gulf War. But in their apocalyptic account they mistakenly made the now seemingly toothless Saddam Hussein once again a symbol of evil by writing him into the story alongside al Qaeda, resulting in the war's contestation in the United States, Britain, and abroad.