Since I have complained quite a bit about ‘megahistories‘ lately, it seems only fit to offer a proper macro-history that I think it done responsibly. Gat’s book is not a history of battles, but of war in the broad sense. He thesis starts with the questions why humans do war (beginning with the motives of food and sex and then moving to more complex motives which derive from those) and then based on those motivations, the assessed how war has shaped humans.
Perhaps the most explosive of these arguments, but one I find very convincing, is his argument that military mortality in the deep past of human history when we all lived as hunter-gatherers was high enough, for long enough that it exerted evolutionary pressure on the emergence of anatomically modern humans; that is, stated bluntly, humans are evolved for war. This argument, which emerges in his first chapter, is a point of fierce debate among archaeologists and anthropologists (it is rooted in rival conceptions of human nature, after all) but I think Gat has the right of it, and I recall reporting when I first read the book that I wished I could ‘frame Gat’s first chapter,’ a position I still hold.
Subsequently, he sees the rise of the state as a consequence of that human propensity for war, in an argument that will not be entirely unfamiliar to blog readers, as I used it as part of the basis of some of the Fremen Mirage. At the end, he concludes that the human propensity for war has become maladaptive, due to the rising power of human productivity (meaning the war is no longer the best way to get resources as compared to industry and trade) and the rising destructiveness of war (meaning that the costs of war outweigh the gains). Consequently, as Gat poses it, the question is if we can hold off on destroying ourselves (with nuclear weapons) as our genetic programming would suggest long enough for evolution (either social or genetic) to catch up to our sudden, newfound destructive power.
I especially recommend Gat to anyone who has read, or is considering reading Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature, a book I am continually asked if I have read. Quite frankly, I think Gat simply has the better, more rigorous form of Pinker’s argument (which naturally also means somewhat different, more reserved conclusions).
I haven’t read it myself, but based on this summary, Azar Gat’s “War in Human Civilization” sounds like it could be helpful for answering your question:
I endorse this recommendation, and am reading the book myself periodically.