I just finished “Ordeal by Battle” by F.S. Oliver.  It was published in 1916 during World War I, but it is not about combat or significant campaigns.  It is a study of contrasts between the civil, social, and military segments of Great Britain and Germany in the years leading up to war and how their actions or inactions contributed to its outbreak.

The prose is very wordy and somewhat dense, as you might expect from British writers of the day, but the ideas and context come through clearly.  What was most striking to me is that if you replace “Great Britain” with “America” and “Germany” with “China,” you would have thought much of it was written today.  Many of the parallels are striking.

For those interested in a deeper understanding of how societies come to blows because of innate differences and worldviews, I highly recommend this book.  It contains many insights for the 21st Century.