You’re comparing two different measures, military casualties versus total casualties. For a reasonably good apples-to-apples measure of wartime violence over time, Better Angels of our Nature is one that I found readable and informative.
IIRC, overall per capita violent death during the world wars was roughly comparable to living in a tribal society during a typical time- of course, for us, those were the exception and not the rule.
I am deliberately looking at military casualties, to highlight that tribal “military” casualties couldn’t possibly be that high. I would guess that the fraction of deaths that were civilian was higher in both world wars than in tribal conflicts. Tribal conflicts are, AFAIK, almost always strictly men killing other men. Per capita comparison is distorted by the longer lifespan of people in the 20th century. Just having more people live past the age of 40 shouldn’t, I’d think, make your age look more peaceful.
You’re comparing two different measures, military casualties versus total casualties. For a reasonably good apples-to-apples measure of wartime violence over time, Better Angels of our Nature is one that I found readable and informative.
IIRC, overall per capita violent death during the world wars was roughly comparable to living in a tribal society during a typical time- of course, for us, those were the exception and not the rule.
I am deliberately looking at military casualties, to highlight that tribal “military” casualties couldn’t possibly be that high. I would guess that the fraction of deaths that were civilian was higher in both world wars than in tribal conflicts. Tribal conflicts are, AFAIK, almost always strictly men killing other men. Per capita comparison is distorted by the longer lifespan of people in the 20th century. Just having more people live past the age of 40 shouldn’t, I’d think, make your age look more peaceful.
I’ve heard the claim that in some areas, 60% of the death rate for tribal men was due to homicide.