‘Why Humans Fight’

In this book, Professor Maleevi offers a novel sociological answer to the age-old question: 'Why do humans fight?'. Instead of focusing on the motivations of solitary individuals, he emphasises the centrality of the social and historical contexts that make fighting possible. He argues that fighting is not an individual attribute, but a social phenomenon shaped by one's relationships with other people. Drawing on recent scholarship across a variety of academic disciplines as well as his own interviews with the former combatants, Maleevi shows that one's willingness to fight is a contextual phenomenon shaped by specific ideological and organisational logic. This book explores the role biology, psychology, economics, ideology, and coercion play in one's experience of fighting, emphasising the cultural and historical variability of combativeness. Professor Maleevi was appointed UCD Chair of Sociology in September 2011. Previously he held research and teaching appointments at the Institute for International Relations (Zagreb), the Centre for the Study of Nationalism, CEU (Prague) and at the National University of Ireland, Galway. Recent books include: Comparative Sociological Theory (Sage 2021) + Classical Sociological Theory (Sage 2021), both with S. Loyal, Grounded Nationalisms: A Sociological Analysis  (Cambridge UP, 2019), The Rise of Organised Brutality: A Historical Sociology of Violence (Cambridge UP, 2017, Outstanding Book Award from the American Sociological Association), and  Nation-States and Nationalisms (Polity, 2013)