It appears difficult to give war a single definition. How to compare the wars opposing of the bands of Yanomanis Indians of Brazil, the Trojan War in Greece, wars of unification of Han in China, the One hundred Year old war, the American Civil War, two world wars or more recent wars of the Gulf or ex-Yugoslavia?
The anthropological approach supports the comparative literature starting from fundamental situations. For Malinowski, the war is “an armed conflict between two political units independent by means of a military force organized at ends of tribal or national policy”, and Margaret Mead precise who it is “about a conflict organized and sanctioned socially; the fact of killing not being defined like a murder”.