Hello and welcome to the History Extra Podcast from BBC History magazine, Britain's

best-selling history magazine. I'm Ellie Korthorn. Today's podcast is the historian Margaret McMillan. I interviewed Margaret for the December issue of BBC History

magazine about her new book War how conflict shaped us which explores the

long intertwining of conflict and human society and charts how warfare has grown and mutated over the centuries.

Your new book looks at a long history of war and its relationship to society from the ancient world to the modern day.

Why do you think that it's enlightening to examine the history of war using such a wide lens?

I think the advantage of going wide is... using such a wide lens?

I think the advantage of going wide

is that you can detect perhaps patterns,

you can detect similarities,

you can detect differences.

It gives you context, and perhaps it gives you context.

And perhaps it gives us in the present a sense of humility

that we're not that unique,

that other peoples have fought in the past.

And I wanted to give a sense of the long intertwining of war and human society and I think to look through the past helps to do that.

As you mentioned there, the central tenant in your book is that war doesn't ever take place in isolation.

It's very intertwined with societies for the time.

What do you think that we need to understand about war's relationship to society that we perhaps haven't done before?

Well, I think some of us have understood it, but perhaps there's been a sense that military history is something apart. It's toys for boys. it's

been a sense that military history is something apart. It's toys for boys, you know, it's all about guns and it's all about battles and it's all about strategy and so on.

And of course that's part of it because the ways that battles go and the sorts of weapons that people have really make a difference.

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