How does the reviewer approach a book with the title War is Not Inevitable when he believes it is? The book's subtitle, On the Psychology of War and Aggression, broaches a subject about which much can be written, and that will be a focus of my review. Vamik Volkan, in his introduction, states that Henri Parens's main reason for writing the book is to tell us Freud was wrong in his response to Einstein's question: Why war? Does psychoanalysis have any new insights that might deliver us from the scourge of war? Parens points out that Freud based his response on his death instinct theory, which Parens rightly calls into question, as have many others since Freud offered that metapsychological point of view. Melanie Klein in Europe and Karl Menninger in the United States were mostly in agreement with Freud on this matter, but others, particularly Otto Kernberg, have had more nuanced views on the subject. A problem with Parens's argument is that it is more difficult to prove that war is not