Some clues :
Douglas P. Fry : Pacified Past
Azar Gat : Warfare as an Ancient Feature
Robert Carneiro : Complexity and State Formation
Was the 20th century one of the most violent in human history ? (with two world wars and numerous other conflicts) ?
i also like the documentary series : “The Ascent of man” from the BBC in 1973 by Jacob Bronowski.
A good point, but I personally see it like this: a small percent of humans created weapons of extreme destruction, then the small percent of humans with access to them still did not kill as many as they did back then. The faceless violence sucks, but weapons development was set to outpace peace development before every living human was born. Pretty soon everyone with access to those weapons will have simply inherited it, making them more capable of war but not more warlike.