Customer Reviews

Must We Fight?: From The Battlefield to the Schoolyard - A New Perspective on Violent Conflict and Its Prevention

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I would describe Bill Ury's latest contribution as a slim, easy to read, non-academic replay of his earlier "The Third Side." Using examples, it walks a reader through the anthropology that supports the preventability of violence as a response to conflict and how 'third sides" function to prevent it. While I read it with consideration for use in the classroom, I see it better used and appreciated by community leaders, politicians, and others who are trying to understand what role, if any, they may have in responding to needs in their communities. It isn't a skills manual nor a book that overwhelms with root-causes or theories of conflict. It offers the reader information on the roles that can assist in preventing, resolving, or containing conflicts supported by real examples.
I once heard that major conflict between a school board and teacher's union was averted when all players received copies of Fisher and Ury's "Getting To Yes." Giving copies of "Must We Fight" to a city's political, community, church, school, business and civic organization leaders may do the same at a community level. Oh, and if there are any extras, please pass them along to the Homeland Security Director and members of the UN.

Must we fight is a content driven book for those interested on issue of the etiological nature of human violence. Waal traced the roots of human to these of the bonobo and chimpanzee, thus indirectly supporting Darwin's evolutionary view of humankind. Ferguson's approach to the issues of human aggression was primarily based on the author's analysis of archaelogical finding and ancient and modern history traced human aggression to Cain and Abel. Ferguson concluded that human aggression seems to primarily caused by jealousy, greed, and issues of power and control. Ury's chapter, however, not only explore but also explained and provided simple but comprehensive approach to "containing, resolving, and preventing conflict" (p. 78). I found this book to be of further support to my doctoral dissertation topic which is somewhat related to the aftermath of intimate partner violence.

HC