Customer Reviews

Constant Battles: The Myth of the Peaceful, Noble Savage

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Do not read this book if you are wedded to the idea that we humans once lived in harmony with our natural environment. LeBlanc argues that we were slaughtering each other over scarce resources long before the invention of agriculture or the advent of complex societies. Although not the first to pooh-pooh the idea of the peaceful, noble savage, he is one of the first to do so using prehistoric archaeological evidence.

LeBlanc makes a strong case that virtually all ancient societies collapsed from an endless cycle of overpopulation, resource depletion, and warfare. My favorite example, among many, was Troy. Archaeologists had a hard time finding it because Homer's description placed it near a bay. The Greek islands were not always the barren, desolate rocks that you see today. They were turned into stone by human activities: the elimination of forests, non-sustainable farming, and overgrazing (which continues to this day.) The bay that once fronted Troy was filled in by silt from the denuded hillsides centuries ago leaving the ruins stranded many miles from the sea.

The author argues that overpopulation, followed by resource depletion and warfare, was more than just common; it was inevitable. Given the option to do so, people eventually went after their neighbor's resources.

LeBlanc points out that there is a strong tendency for researchers to whitewash their archaeological findings. I have to agree with him. Years ago, when I first read of the bronze age iceman mummy discovered in the Alps, the researchers had suggested that he was probably a peaceful sheepherder who had been caught in an unexpected blizzard. The polished bronze ax found in his possession was too soft to cut down trees. It must have had religious or ritual significance. That was all before they found the arrow in the iceman's back. In addition, his knife has the blood of four other individuals on it. He also has defensive wounds on his arms. LeBlanc sees the iceman's bronze artifact for what it really is-a deadly battle-ax. Considering how rare prehistoric human remains are, I am astounded that so many of them show signs of violent death at the hands of other humans. This is exactly the point LeBlanc is making.

This book has a few technical problems that should have been resolved by its editors. For example, the word infanticide is used ten times in just three paragraphs on pages 48 and 49. We are told more than once that Nanook of the North starved to death. We are also told at least seven different times that, according to the fossil record, about 25 percent of all males died at the hands of other males.

In the end, LeBlanc's findings beg the question: are we genetically locked into this cycle of overpopulation, environmental degradation, and violence? LeBlanc falls victim to his own whitewash when he tries to answer it. Believing that warfare is ultimately the result of conflict over scarce resources, he optimistically concludes that with modern technology and knowledge we will eventually free ourselves from resource scarcity and therefore warfare.

This is where LeBlanc and I part ways. We may one day free ourselves from resource scarcity, but it would be a stretch to suggest that modern war is the result of it. Hundreds of thousands of years of warlike behavior can only mean one thing: our aggressive behavior has been selected for by evolutionary pressure. Like wasps, we have a strong natural predilection to respond in a specific manner when someone hits our nest with a stick. Just sixty-two years ago, our nation was hit with a stick and we responded by incinerating the men, women, and children of two cities with nuclear weapons. Our nest was hit by another stick on 9/11/2001. I rest my case.

LeBlanc concludes, "For the first time in history, technology and science enable us to understand Earth's ecology and our impact on it, to control population growth, and to increase the carrying capacity in ways never before imagined. The opportunity for humans to live in long term balance with nature is within our grasp..."

I agree with LeBlanc's tenet that technology and knowledge hold the key to the planet's future. However, time is running out, especially for the planet's biodiversity. I am going to plug my own book here, "Poison Darts-Preserving the Biodiversity of Our World" because it is all about how to do it, not why we should or even if we should. Human nature is not going to change any time soon.

I highly recommend this book.

First the good news: LeBlanc's main message is right. People in almost all societies have fought, and very often it's all about resources. Traditional societies of all sorts, from hunter-gatherers to early states, often overused their environments badly, and then either tried to cope by taking resources from the neighbors, or weakened themselves to the point where the neighbors could scarf up on them. LeBlanc urges us contemporary humans to take heed, and clean up our ecological act so that we can reduce (hopefully eliminate) the danger of war.
So far, so good. Thus, on balance, this is a good book and a very valuable one. LeBlanc notes that whatever innate aggressions humans have, their actual wars are typically over land and resources, and thus are preventable. We all need to hear this, in an age when politicians and writers love to naturalize war and aggression as inevitable. (Yes, I know, war isn't just about resources, but it usually involves much concern about them.)

The problems come with LeBlanc's exaggeration and sometimes shaky scholarship (on which see exchange of letters in ARCHAEOLOGY for Sept.-Oct 2003). First, while the myth of the ecologically harmonious "savage" was once common and is still with us, the myth of the peaceful savage seems quite rare. LeBlanc cites only one source for it, and he's wrong about that one. He cites Rousseau (hardly an anthropologist). In fact Rousseau never used the term "noble savage" (it's from Dryden), and R's "savage" was the chimpanzee, of whose sometimes-violent behavior R was well aware. (He tells some stories of their attacks on Africans.) Anthropologists know traditional people are often warlike. H. H. Turney-High's foundational review PRIMITIVE WAR (oddly, not cited by LeBlanc) established a baseline on that, many decades ago. Lloyd Warner (whom LeBlanc does cite) noted that Australian Aboriginals waged war about as often as Europeans, with casualty rates (and rhetoric!) comparable to WWI. Raymond Kelly and Brian Ferguson claim no "warfare" for simpler societies (in recent books) but it's a definitional difference; they define warfare as formal, huge-scale, organized conflict, and don't count the small but bloody feuds and battles almost universal among traditional peoples. I really don't know of anyone who thinks simpler societies were peaceful, but my panel of popular-culture experts (a.k.a. my family) assure me that the New Age and Goddess-worshiping set does indeed so believe. (I assume that Diana Muir's comments on anthropologists, in another Amazon review, refer to textbook accounts of ecological harmony; they certainly don't apply to the anthro literature on war.)
On ecology, while LeBlanc is right that lots of people mess their environments up, he exaggerates it, and uses a ridiculously strict definition of "conservation" that makes it virtually synonymous with "preservation." This would rule out modern soil conservation, water conservation, duck conservation, game animal conservation, etc. Traditional people everywhere figure out how to manage their environments well enough to let them survive; they sometimes overuse resources, and even ruin whole ecosystems, but usually they do well enough--though not well enough to prevent occasional war.
All this would be trivial if it weren't for the very strong possibility that LeBlanc's book will be misunderstood, by superficial readers, as a claim that "savages" are the treacherous, destructive bloodthirsty, violent, cruel, endlessly-warring beasts that they were said to be in all the earlier literature--from Thomas Hobbes to Hollywood cowboys-and-Indians movies. (Hollywood's recent glorification of the Indian is small recompense for nearly 100 years of portraying Indians as mindless butchers of cowboys and settlers.) In my experience, for every person who believes in the peaceful, harmonious savage, there are hundreds who believe in the Hobbesian one. These people usually follow Hobbes in assuming that we civilized folk have nothing to learn from "savages" except that we need a powerful king or dictator to keep us in line. If I read LeBlanc aright, this is NOT what he is saying, and readers should be warned not to make too much of his lurid title and occasionally (though not usually) exaggerated claims.

From the above reviews of LeBlanc's "Constant Battles," we can clearly see that the "noble savage" interpretation of pre-history engenders strong emotional responses, more in the vein of current TV political shows where name calling is the norm and less in the vein of academic discourse where there should be an appeal to facts and clear reasoning. In fact, in approaching this subject, it might be best to try and put both emotions and political views, if not aside, at least in the background.

LeBlanc is quite clear in stating his own academic history with this topic, the need for this and other studies on the topic, his methodology and his copious citations from peer reviewed scholarship. In addition, he points out that a very large portion of previous scholarship on early human societies assumed a great deal about the pacifist nature of these societies in the face of often clear but nearly universally overlooked evidence as to the bellicose nature of humans and our simian relatives, the chimpanzees.

To these ends, then, LeBlanc provides readers with an amply researched and argued thesis about the ubiquitous nature of warfare among human societies that is often triggered by a given group exceeding their own territory's "carrying capacity." In fact, this thesis is one that is echoed by Jared Diamond in his "Collapse" where Diamond provides clear cut evidence that much contemporary war is caused by environmental distress squeezing out carrying capacity.

Btw, one reviewer refers to the "Human Resource Area Files" when its proper title is, in fact, the "Human Relations Area Files." You know, lads, if you are going to muster evidence, at least get the names of your witnesses correct and do not lie by saying that LeBlanc ignores peer reviewed literature when he actually cites it throughout this useful volume. I, as a professor who teaches early art and culture, find this book a refreshing addition to my course material. But, then again, I would expect this from LeBlanc, who has a Ph.D. in Archeology and is currently at Harvard.

This very well researched book destroys the extreme environmentalist fable that a peaceful noble primitive existence occurred before industrialization destroyed it. The author demonstrates that without the modern scientific and technological resources environmental despoilation, at least eventually, occurred. This degraded environment along with sustained population growth led to the primitive warfare that was per capita more deadly than modern warfare. Primitive life was not some disneyfied tale of harmony with nature, love, and peace, but nasty, brutal, and often short.

This book should be read by all. It is a real eco myth buster. The book is one of the best anecdotes for modern primitivism.

I decided to assign this book to an undergraduate seminar course on violence and warfare because LeBlanc has a readable writing style and he doesn't get bogged down in too much analysis. The funny thing is that this is both the main strength and the main weakness of this book. LeBlanc provides many references to many case studies, yet he fully develops very few. This leaves an academic who is not a scholar of warfare feeling as though much of the book is mere speculation. However, if one is familiar with the literature cited, one can see the utility of the generality. The utility resides in LeBlanc's ability to provide concise summaries of the ethnographic and historical material that has allowed anthropologists and archaeologists to develop models for interpreting warfare among foragers, simple farming societies, and complex societies. LeBlanc cites many sources, which will allow me to find comprehensible journal articles dealing with warfare evidence in different times and places to use in the course as case studies. As a former student of Keith Otterbein, LeBlanc's books says very little I had not heard before or read in either Dr. Otterbein's work or Lawrence Keeley's. However, Leblanc's work is easier than either of the other books (one by Otterbein and one by Keeley) to understand and that makes it a better choice for an undergrad class. If this were a graduate course, I would be assigning Otterbein's How War Began.

The title seems to be more biased than the book. The book actually does not claim that all peoples have always been in "constant battles", he does not try to avoid talking about known non-agressive and peaceful peoples at all. He is debunking the "peaceful past" myth quite well, but when I read the book, I get a picture about "mostly warlike" past instead of "constantly warlike" one. I tend to agree that there was lots of wars and violence in the past. I am more suspicious about LeBlancs claims about constant "overexploitation of the environment" of the prehistoric and modern humans.

LeBlank does not appear to be very focused on the subjects of his chapters. Instead he likes to change the subject constantly between prehistoric foragers, chimpanzees and world wars, gulf war and so on. In most of time, it is interesting reading, sometimes is his point hard to follow. For example, he argues that modern "warlords" are actually pre-state tribal governments as they have existed about thousands of years (I agree with that very much) and then next sentence brings in collapse of Yugoslavia as an example (Does he think that Slovenia was a "chiefdom" ? What has a conflict between parts of modern, bureocratic state to do with pre-state tribal conflicts ?).

Archaeologist Steven LeBlanc's work on many digs led him to two controversial conclusions: there always has been warfare among humans, and humans never have lived in harmony with nature. Describing how many traditional societies have abused their environments, he connects pre-modern warfare directly to population growth and resource scarcity. Warfare in the past, he writes, may have ultimately been driven by rational response to diminishing resources.

Bringing his thesis forward into modern times, LeBlanc again challenges conventional wisdom. His optimistic conclusion: warfare has declined over time, suggesting that it is not an inherently human behavior. The proportion of the population involved in war has been declining; there has been a reduction in war deaths on a per capita basis. The Industrial Revolution, LeBlanc writes, increased the world's carrying capacity; technology and science enable us to understand the Earth's ecology and our impact on it, to control population growth, and to increase the carrying capacity in ways never before imagined. According to LeBlanc, we are on the right trajectory for world peace.

Sweeping conclusions like these must rattle the liberal intellectual establishment that has kept us on a collective guilt trip for decades. Those conclusions would be more convincing if LeBlanc had provided us with systematic data instead of relying on anecdotes. Such a book might have been drier to read, but more powerful.

This book has two main points: that people often fight physically, and that they have always placed excessive pressure on their food resources. The first of these contentions seems self-evident, although many anthropologists and archaeologists have seemed not to recognize or acknowledge its importance. I give Leblanc two stars for effectively making this point and even supporting it with some good arguments--even though he extraordinarily exaggerates the prevalence of contradictory opinion within his field and among the general public. For the most part his ideas are not new; in fact, I really have to wonder why the book was even written and published. It adds little to the world's understanding of human (pre)history.

The second point, that people have always placed excessive pressure on their food resources, is not demonstrated or argued directly for pre-agricultural societies in the book. Instead, it is supported by a sort of circular logic: since they fought, they must have fought due to competition over food, so they obviously were living at carrying capacity. This is probably true, but counterintuitive explanations for behavior are sometimes valid; Leblanc is so sure of himself that he fails to consider actually providing any real evidence for his argument. Instead, he resorts to debunking a straw-man myth of his own creation: the supposedly prevalent belief that foragers were "conservationists who lived in perfect harmony with nature." Here his logic becomes absurd. He defines "conservationist" in such a narrow sense that no human society could ever achieve it, and tests the hypothesis that foragers were conservationists against implications that have no relation to real life or reasonable inquiry. Apparently, in order to be "conservationists," people would have to maintain perfectly stable populations over many millennia while also guaranteeing that all sympatric organisms in their landscape do the same, even when that means starving to death in the short term. To say the least, that would be hard. For him to pretend that any other anthropologist, archaeologist, or intelligent person believes that foragers did this is simply childish and reveals a subtle desperation that probably results from his internal recognition that he in fact has no argument, nor evidence, to support his contention. His point is weaker for this perverse method of arguing, and weakened further still by his returning to this "inherent conservationist" test in every chapter of the book. It would have been better had he left his supposition that people were constantly under nutritional stress in prehistory as simply a conjecture--which it is--instead of pretending to demonstrate it through specious and illogical arguments that only reveal frailty. (The widespread belief that foragers live more "in harmony" with local ecology than agricultural civilizations [this is a belief held by real people, as opposed to Leblanc's imaginary projected belief in perfect conservationists] is so well founded and supported by almost boundless and unequivocal evidence that Leblanc knows he would look ridiculous to argue the point--in fact he repeatedly acknowledges it in the book.) In fact, the whole discussion of the "inherent conservationist" myth is just a proxy argument about population pressure that could have been left out altogether; a direct discussion of population pressure would have been clearer and more effective.

There's not much else in here. He just keeps repeating the same arguments in slightly different contexts, which serves to make his obvious point still obvious, while his other point remains unmade by scarcely relevant ramblings.

There are some other general comments about the book. First, the editing is probably the worst that I have ever seen in something that is at least quasi-academic. The author uses words incorrectly, has disagreement between sentence components, leaves words out, repeats himself repeatedly. Not arcane stuff--stuff that any reader would notice. It's as if the book had no real editor-just a spell-checker. Many of Leblanc's arguments are surprisingly disorganized, filled with tangential and irrelevant fluff. He also engages in the kind of pseudo-scientific sensationalism that should make his peers scoff at the book; using words like "proves" or "demonstrates" or "shows" for weak anecdotal evidence where a real scientist would use terms such as "suggests" or "supports"--if they chose to include the evidence at all.

It's OK to have a chip on your shoulder, but if you're going to engage in strident criticism, at least make your point competently. And if you want to write a book, try finding a book's worth of content.

I picked this up after reading Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies and then a recommendation in The Economist lauding LeBlanc's theory. As a caveat, I must say that I was probably spoiled by the easy style- and well-developed arguments- Jared Diamond offers. However, given other reviewers' complaints about the writing, I do now feel confident that my reaction was more about LeBlanc than my prejudices: the writing is gramatically awkward- what exactly do editors do these days?- and the substance feels more theoretical and at times even philosophy class logical, with even- I'm not joking- usages of syllogisms with mostly unrelated topics. I think that can be a useful tool to shore up an argument backed up by facts, but that's not the case here.

The central thesis is in two parts: first, human beings have been warring with each other since before we were human; second, human beings have never been able to maintain some kind of instinctive, one-with-nature, Eden-like relationship with our environment. The link between the two is that the lack of balance between our carrying capacity and our populations has necessitated conflicts. As weak as some of LeBlanc's evidence is, it is difficult to argue with the assertion that, all technology being equal, sheer numbers will usually determine who is going to win. That those numbers may grow at the expense of our environment is, perhaps, the price we had to pay to be a successful species.

What was most frustrating about this book was the conclusion. While discussing the facts of conflict and food instability throughout the stages of social development, he promised repeatedly to answer the question of whether or not we were destined for war and conflict. Once at the conclusion, he theorized (and by this time the lack of evidence was maddening) that we are not biologically destined for constant warfare and don't generally get into it unless we feel, as a larger group, that it is warranted for our survival. He pointed to a few instances where traditionally warlike groups became peaceful. Although for the most part this was imposed by an outside force (e.g., European conquerors), for the most part the change to "peace" was happily accepted. However, he also noted that while we are now, for the most part, in a peaceful era (although conflicts take place all over the world, a much smaller percentage of people are involved than ever were before), that could change if, for example, our climate undergoes another major transformation, such as another Little Ice Age or, perhaps, intensified global warming. I guess I shouldn't have expected a definitive answer, even though one had been promised.

I believe in the overall argument that LeBlanc makes, but I'd be hardpressed to defend it using this book. I seriously hope other scholars are interested enough in this theory to pick up the work and further develop it.

Steven LeBlanc of Harvard makes a great case against the popular mythology that pre-historical man somehow lived at peace with his environment while simultaneously using only what he needed to live and no more; that is, without overusing the resources of his surrounding environment. He cites his vast experience as an archeologist to show that man has always been at war with other men, and has always "trashed" the environment. The myth has heretofore been that man only became warlike with the rise of capitalism which is supposed to have made men exploitative toward other men while concommitantly making him a despoiler of the environment in pursuit of greater profits; profits being a dirty word. BTW, anyone reading "Genome" by Ridley would be disabused of these notion immediately. However.........

If you're an anti-politically-correctness guy like myself, you'll howl with laughter at these ridiculous theories of those in archeology who are slaves to funding at the government trough where these theories of history predominate; to purposely push a political agenda advocating international one-world socialism. This book should be required as a grouping of books to be studied along with "Genome", "no bone unturned" by Benedict, "the skeptical environmentalist" by Lomborg, "Bias" by Bernard Goldberg, and countless others which handily refute the distortions fomented on unsuspecting students by teachers with a far-left neo-communist agenda.

If you're interested in how man evolved from monkeys, and made it out of Africa, you'll also love this book. Read Jane Goodall's books on the chimps in Gombi, and anything by Franz DeWall. Utterly fascinating!