![]() ![]() If this high rate had held true during the twentieth century, 2 billion people would have died in twentieth-century wars rather than the 100 million who did die (Pinker, 2012). Looking further back in world history, the death rate in prehistoric times from tribal warfare was extremely high. Reid Kasprowicz – A Flag for the Fallen – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. In terms of the risk of dying in war, then, the Mongolian wars were five times more deadly than World War II. A quick calculation shows that about 11 percent of the world’s population died from the Mongolian wars, while 2 percent died from World War II. Although 55 million is more than 40 million, the world’s population in the thirteenth century was only one-seventh its population during the World War II period. ![]() The second period is 1939–1945, when World War II killed 55 million people. The first is the thirteenth century, when the Mongol Empire under the initial leadership of Genghis Khan became an empire in Asia and Eastern Europe through wars and conquest in which it killed 40 million people. To illustrate this trend, compare two periods of history (Pinker, 2012). Reflecting this decline, a smaller percentage of the world’s population died in armed conflict during the past century than in earlier eras. The hope arises from historical evidence that the number of international wars, civil wars, and other types of armed conflict has in fact declined over the centuries, with the number in the past half-century much smaller than in centuries past (Pinker, 2012). Although this is almost an unimaginable number, there is cause for some hope, even as there is also cause for despair. More than 100 million soldiers and civilians are estimated to have died during the international and civil wars of the twentieth century (Leitenberg, 2006).
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