Thumbs up for Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War by Barbara Ehrenreich. History/Psychology.
If Ehrenreich’s thesis is that the deep root of warfare is (I quote the jacket) “the blood rites early humans performed to reenact their terrifying experience of predation by stronger carnivores,” then I don’t think she sells it. The fact that I had to refer to the jacket flap tells you how much impact the idea had on me. Not that I’m saying it’s wrong; it’s just that I’m agnostic about whether we’ll ever know why people kill each other in organized ways. There is more to this book, however. While failing (in my opinion) to prove her thesis, she presents a well-organized, clearly-presented overview about humanity’s relationship to war throughout history. I like Ehrenreich’s journalistic style, which is informed by her education in a hard science (biology): when something is conjecture, she labels it. I read this quickly but it’s a keeper, and I’ll refer back to it. Highly recommended for anyone who is interested in the topic.
Furthermore, fighting itself is only one component of the enterprise we know as war. Wars are not barroom brawls writ large, or domestic violence that has been somehow extended to strangers. In war, fighting takes place within battles – along with much anxious waiting, of course – but wars do not begin with battles and are often not decided by them either. Most of war consists of preparation for battle – training, the organization of supplies, marching and other forms of transport – activities which are hard to account for by innate promptings of any kind. There is no plausible instinct, for example, that impels a man to leave his home, cut his hair short, and drill for hours in tight formation. As anthropologists Clifton B. Kroeber and Bernard L. Fontana point out, “It is a large step from what may be biologically innate leanings toward individual aggression to ritualized, socially sanctioned, institutionalized group warfare.”
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