ABSTRACT
Agricultural societies became much larger than forager societies, and so did their wars, and there were many smaller scale conflicts too. To understand the dynamics of conflicts, we have to complement the principles of cooperation, culture, and inequality with principles dedicated to the subject matter. I will first review general theories of dyadic and multi-faction conflicts on individual and group levels, with a strong emphasis on violent intergroup conflicts because they have the largest and most lasting impact. In their dynamics, collective action is crucial in defense and attack, for which I use a new model when the 5r- or 6r-package is insufficient. After combining the model with incumbent theories into a new theory of conflict, we can explain many violent collective conflicts in past and present, although several important questions remain unanswered. Subsequently, I discuss how agricultural societies evolved through warfare, using culture (weapons and institutions) under constraints imposed by opponents. Whereas wars were often initiated and coordinated top-down by elites, commoners’ protests and revolts against their elites emerged bottom-up, which I discuss in the final section.
