War: How Conflict Shaped Us with Margaret MacMillan.

The instinct to fight may be innate in human nature, but war--organized violence--comes with organized society. War has shaped humanity's history, its social and political institutions, its values and ideas. Our very language, our public spaces, our private memories, and some of our greatest cultural treasures reflect the glory and the misery of war. War is an uncomfortable and challenging subject not least because it brings out both the vilest and the noblest aspects of humanity.

Does human nature doom us to fight one another? Why has war been described as the most organized of all human activities? Why are warriors almost always men? And is war ever within our control?

Join us on the 24th November as Margaret MacMillan, emeritus professor of international history at the University of Oxford, professor of history at the University of Toronto and the bestselling author of books including Paris 1919, offers a provocative view of war as an essential component of humanity.

She’ll be exploring the ways in which war has influenced human society and how changes in political organization, technology, or ideologies have affected how and why we fight.

Drawing on lessons from wars throughout the past, from classical history to the present day, Margaret will reveal the many faces of war--the way it has determined our past, our future, our views of the world, and our very conception of ourselves.

This Salon is part of our drive to get us together with the big ideas we need. Tickets are £7 or why not support our bookselling by buying War: How Conflict Shaped Us from us below which we will send you post-Salon. Alternatively, become a member and get your big ideas curated by us at Salon London for a whole year.