Humans have engaged in warfare throughout their existence

In 1931 the League of Nations offered Albert Einstein, a physicist and vocal pacifist, the chance to choose a correspondent on a subject of his choice. He opted for Sigmund Freud, an Austrian psychologist, as his partner. “Is there a way of delivering mankind from the menace of war?” was the question. Freud was not optimistic; he thought that in every human there was a “death drive”, an impulse to violence and destruction. The slim pamphlet emerging from their exchange, “Why War?”, makes for heavy reading.