On the Causes of War

Suganami goes back to his intellectual roots, to political science, not history. The intelligence and rigour of his arguments ought to impress both disciplines. * Times Literary Supplement *
This is a good and very readable book. Anyone interested in the causes of war or the philosophy of explanation in International Relations should read it. It will be very helpful to graduate students and third year undergraduates. * Michael Nicholson, Millennium *
Suganami presents On the Causes of War as a corrective; in reality, he is tearing up Waltz's book and starting again. * Hew Strachan, Times Literary Supplement *
The intelligence and rigour of his arguments ought to impress both disciplines [history and political science]. * Times Literary Supplement *
Suganami's taut, spare, disciplined, analytical. * Times Literary Supplement *
A strength of Suganami's approach is the width of the scholarship he considers ... this is a good and very readable book. Anyone interested in the causes of was or the philosophy of explanation in International Relations should read it. It will be very helpful to graduate students and third year undergraduates, and so the publishers should think quickly of a paperback edition. * Millennium *
Hidemi Suganami's book is a detailed analysis of the substantive problems of the causes of war, embedded in a careful analysis of the relevant issues in the philosophy of the social sciences ... A strength of Suganami's approach is the width of the scholarship he considers ... this is a good and very readable book. Anyone interested in the causes of war or the philosophy of explanation in International Relations should read it. It will be very helpful to graduate students and third year undergraduates, and so the publishers should think quickly of a paperback edition. * Millennium *
Students of war are well-advised to pay heed to Suganami's critique, but this compact essay would make worthwhile reading for all social scientists and historians. It is a fundamental inquiry into the nature of explanation and causation, problems that far too often are taken for granted rather than articulated explicitly ... Suganami shows us how we can better link the scientific and ethical domains. * International Affairs *
Suganami's book is a much needed contribution to a field which for too long has been dominated by over-confident grand theorists and over-ambitious empirical researchers ... His book is a brilliant demonstration of the fact that an exercise in the philosophy of science really can pay off in terms of concrete empirical analysis. The book should be prescribed reading for all scholars of international conflicts. It fits perfectly in a course on the origins of war, even, I think, one at a fairly elementary level. * Neue Politische Literatur *
Students of war are well-advised to pay heed to Suganami's critique, but this compact essay would make worthwhile reading for all social scientists and historians. It is a fundamental inquiry into the nature of explanation and causation, problems that far too often are taken for granted rather than articulated explicitly ... Suganami shows us how we can better link the scientific and ethical domains. * International Affairs *
The range of discussion in this volume is broad indeed. * Journal of Peace Research *
The fusion of historical and philosophical approaches does lead to insights of value...He also offers a persuasive analysis of the relationship between war origins in general and the location of the sources of specific wars. * The Times Higher Education Supplement *
a complex philosophical treatment of the idea of causation ... He provides a new way of examining the past to learn how wars could have been avoided and why they were brought about. Those engaged in peace research, and especially those concerned with normative peace studies or with doing empirical research in a postpositivist vein, will find this book of interest. * John A. Vasquez, Vanderbilt University, American Political Science Review, Vol. 91, No. 2, June 1997 *