Warhead

How the Brain Shapes War and War Shapes the Brain

By: Nicholas Wright

A researched narrative of how wars are a consequence of brain systems that deal with conflict, competition, and social cooperation.

Nicholas Wright’s WARHEAD is a groundbreaking new book that shows listeners how wars are a consequence of common brain systems that deal with conflict, competition, and social cooperation. Journeying through ten brain regions, Wright begins his explanation at the base of the brain, the brainstem, climbing step-by-step until he reaches the frontal pole looking at how each region influences the human propensity towards war. While brain anatomy provides the framework, each chapter is brought to life through battle stories from history.

Wright considers what it was like for, say, a foot soldier at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 or one in China’s Red Army during the Long March in 1934-5 to fight. He thinks about commanders like Heinz Guderian or Shaka Zulu and asks how they could see through the fog of war, make better decisions and communicate with those who must carry them out. In telling these stories Wright connects the biological with the historical through medical records of soldiers who fought in both World Wars, in Vietnam and in the Gulf Wars. Using similar methods, he looks at drone pilots deep in a Nevada air base, the children of the Islamic State’s “Cubs” and others while also considering the records of leaders who had to make the hardest choice.

Focusing finally on what to come, he asks how the internet or GPS can provide a window into war’s technological futures. We will never be without war. Nicholas Wright’s Warhead explains this unfortunately recurring biological imperative and shows us how no human, given our common neuroanatomy, is immune to its prosecution and resolution.

©2025 Nicholas Wright (P)2025 Macmillan Audio