This interesting and informative volume arises from a conference held in 2012. Fourteen papers derive from those presented at the conference itself, with the addition of a thoughtful chapter by Vandkilde providing an overview and something of a counterpoint to several of the others. In their introduction (Chapter 1), Horn and Kristiansen state the key aim of the book as being to argue “that the Bronze Age represents the global emergence of a militarized society” (p. 1), global in this case meaning Eurasia. The emphasis here is clearly intended to be on social aspects of warfare, moving beyond the useful, but inherently limited, past approach dominated by studies of weaponry and fortifications.

The papers are well edited and have helpful illustrations, especially for the many readers who will be unfamiliar with the details of the evidence. The volume as a whole has a broad scope in terms of period, theme and geography, but unsurprisingly for a fairly slim publication that originated at a conference, the coverage of all three is somewhat uneven. Most of the chapters focus on the later part of the Bronze Age, and these tend to see a militarised society as already in existence, so relatively little consideration is given to the emergence of this form of social organisation and how it came into being. It is not unexpected, given the Bronze Age theme of the volume, that discussion of warfare in the Later Neolithic/Copper Age/Chalcolithic is very limited, but encouraging the authors to bring their considerable knowledge to bear on this significant question would have produced valuable results. Exceptions are the introduction by Horn and Kristiansen (Chapter 1), the concluding overview by Vandkilde (Chapter 15) and the review of the southern Levant by Klimscha (Chapter 7), with the transitional period in the Levantine case study naturally being rather different to that in Europe.

In terms of the thematic range of the papers, there are, as one would expect, a number that focus on weaponry. In keeping with the aims of the volume, however, these do attempt to move beyond the usual typological debates, to bring in social aspects of weapon production, use and deposition, achieving this to varying degrees. Mörtz's paper (Chapter 11) on British weapon depositions, and Molloy's (Chapter 6) on South-east European connections through weaponry, are perhaps the most successful in this regard. Several papers aim to provide a broader view of the archaeological evidence, e.g. those by Harding (Chapter 2), Kristiansen (Chapter 3), Horn (Chapter 4) and Pitman and Doonan (Chapter 8), considering movement of objects and people, enclosures and osteoarchaeology alongside the weaponry. Standing out by virtue of its subject matter is the paper by Lidke et al. (Chapter 10) on the crucial ongoing research project on the Tollense Valley battlefield site in north-east Germany; this is a useful summary of work that shows warfare on a vastly larger scale than almost any of the other sites mentioned in the volume. The direct evidence of violence is generally limited to a handful of cases in most chapters.

The geographic scope of the volume is primarily within Europe, split mostly between Northern and South-eastern Europe, with more limited discussion of Central Europe: it would have been interesting to have included papers that provided more of the regional context for the Tollense battle. The excursions beyond Europe are to the Southern Levant with Klimscha (Chapter 7) and to southern Russia with Pitman and Doonan (Chapter 8); both are very good case studies, but suffer somewhat from a geographic separation from the rest of the volume.

The case presented in this volume, for the Bronze Age as an age of warriors (primarily male), is cogently and convincingly argued, although its origins remain somewhat obscure. One might, however, also see the Bronze Age as an age of victims of those warriors. A future development from the admirable concern with the social aspects of warfare shown in this book might be to refocus our attention somewhat, in so far as it is possible, on the victims. They receive little attention here (as in studies of Bronze Age warfare generally), apart from quite brief mentions, particularly in the papers by Harding (Chapter 2), Kristiansen (Chapter 3) and Lidke et al. (Chapter 10). What evidence there is, both from the individual cases of conflict and massacre sites such as Tormarton (England), Velim (Bohemia), Sund (Norway) and the Tollense Valley (if there was a post-battle massacre), of spearing from behind, or of people (including women and children) dispatched with wooden clubs, scarcely resembles a heroic death. In some cases, we may be seeing the unceremonious killing and disposal of people defined as the enemy within, rather than an external military foe. The evidence for victims throws a rather different light on conflict, which stands in stark contrast to the romanticised notion of the victorious warrior-hero—a meme that itself goes back to the Bronze Age and Homer. Several papers in the volume touch on the disconnect between the warrior ideal and the bloody reality (for example, Vandkilde; Chapter 15), but a deeper questioning of this Bronze Age propaganda would be an appropriate next step in broadening our consideration of the social aspects of conflict and warfare.