39 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Kudos for Women, Guys...Take a Break, January 9, 2009
This review is from: Sex and War: How Biology Explains Warfare and Terrorism and Offers a Path to a Safer World (Hardcover)
What's this book about? Let's let co-author Malcom Potts, double doctorate (MD, PhD) obstetrician and research biologist, pose the theme in his own words: "Why do we humans, remarkably social animals with extremely large brains, spend so much energy on one thing---deliberately and systematically killing other members of our own species?" Accessing information from a very broad (if at times disorganized) variety of sources, co-authors Potts, Hayden, and Campbell lay out a scaffolding to address this theme, a scaffolding composed of biological, anthropological, archaeological, and sociological elements.
Laced with potent examples of human on human aggression, (e.g. Maori warriors that first pierce the feet of their women captives so that they can't run away, rape them, then post-coitally murder them), Sex and War is a serious, often engaging, frequently horrifying examination of why the human race is the uncontested champ of same-species killing in the vertebrate world. Linking information drawn from historical, demographic, gender study, and evolutionary biology sources, Potts, Hayden, and Campbell provide a plausible hypothesis for the behavior of Nature's most dangerous gender and animal: the male Homo sapiens.
Sound like sociobiology? You betcha, in fact the father of sociobiology, E.O. Wilson, is frequently referenced, as is Wilson's concept of consilience (a unity of knowledge). If you subscribe to sociobiology, you'll find yourself nodding assent, and uttering an "Aha!" with regularity. If you think that human behavior cannot be at least partially explained by our biological and evolutionary roots, this book will most certainly make you think again.
Do men take a beating in this book? Q. How many of the several hundred gang murders in Los Angeles each year are attributed to women? A. Usually, none. Q. How many historical incidences can be found of women banding together on genocidal missions to burn down villages, and kill every man, woman and child in that village? A. None Q. How many pillage and burn revolutionary armies have been composed of and led by women? A. Well, one gets the picture. Are women part of the solution? Absolutely, say the authors. Family planning, education and economic advancement of women are factors almost invariably accompanied by a decrease in armed conflict. High birth rates, economic oppression of women, poverty: the dark horse of war is saddled and ready to ride.
There is an old Star Trek episode in which the starship Enterprise is captured by a conglomeration of superior beings. The crew of the Enterprise stands proxy for the human race, and is put on trial to see if humans should be allowed to continue to develop, or should be wiped out of the galaxy for being dangerous vermin. Much of War and Sex could be cited by the prosecuting attorney in such a trial, yet Potts, Hayden, and Campbell speak up: "Not so fast." A nine point plan entitled "How to Make Peace Break Out" is included, each of the points being based on research rather than pious yearnings or maudlin hope.
The authors are not under any illusions that Sex and War will launch an urgent and immediate campaign to eliminate warfare. As Solzhenitsyn said "If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" As a male human primate, genus and species Homo sapiens, laying down aggression as a means of obtaining my perceived needs would indeed be destroying a piece of my heart. And yet, after reading this book, and absorbing the daily news from Iraq, Darfur, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, Somalia, I think "Yes, Mr. Solzhenitsyn, I'm willing to destroy a piece of my own heart."
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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sex and War Offers Sage Advice For Planetary Survival, December 28, 2008
This review is from: Sex and War: How Biology Explains Warfare and Terrorism and Offers a Path to a Safer World (Hardcover)
From: Donald A. Collins
Book Review: Sex and War: How Biology Explains Warfare and Terrorism and Offers a Path to a Safer World" by Malcolm Potts and Thomas Hayden (Benbella Books,
Dallas, TX 2008)
TEXT: With endorsements high profile people such as Jane Goodall, founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and world's leading expert on our nearest to human primate, the chimpanzee, one can fully expect to find this book scientifically credible. It is a highly readable must read.
Sex and War will no doubt excite attention from all among the human species who still can read and think. Since that is quite a small minority, my fear is that its urgent and insightful theme will enjoy even among that sliver only an Andy Warholian 15 minutes of fame. Better not!
You may not be surprised to be told that the authors show with solid empirical proof that it is primarily male humans who bring us war, but perhaps you are unaware or unmindful of the driving force of male war making tendencies since the dawn of human history, the sex drive.
British born and Cambridge educated, Dr. Potts, now Bixby Professor at UC Berkeley, an obstetrician and research biologist has pursued his humanitarian work worldwide, including helping women in Bangladesh after the War of Liberation in 1972, then in countless other climes torn by conflicts. I met Malcolm in the 1960's when he was the first Medical Director of International Planned Parenthood Federation in London and since have served on several boards and done many travels with him. His co-author, Hayden, a freelance journalist, who is no relation to the Vietnam War Berkeley firebrand, Tom Hayden, also co-authored a 2007 book "On Call in Hell: A Doctor's Iraq War Story" with Cdr Rick Jadick, whose experience in ministering to wounded there brought high accolades from readers.
Rather ironically Hayden's book truly may have helped spark his participation in Sex and War, for while tales of heroism and selfless bravery in battle are the historical standards for all such stories, "Sex and War" reminds us of our biological evolution. After all, for much of human history the most successful and dominant males went to war, took the spoils and raped women in asserting that dominance. You know, Genghis Khan, etc.
One can see why Goodall could be so enthusiastic about this book, since Sex and War shows how close to chimpanzee behavior humans are. Bands of young males raid rival territories, finding the fittest females in classic Darwinian behavior, and thus benefitting the next generations.
The step up description from chimps to humans allows the authors to cite similar behavior found in tribal wars, among inner city street gangs, and then in full warfare, whose aftermath Potts personally helped deal with in Bangladesh when helping war-raped women. Terrorists in our day obviously are imbued with stories of heroic male behavior, which is more powerful than the reported financial inducements. A comparatively benign manifestation of aggressive male behavior can be observed at NFL football games both on the field and in the stands.
Potts' understanding of the urgency of dealing with our now overpopulated planet leads to explanations of how that crowding leads to wars, again entered into often with enthusiasm by young males, motivated by patriotism, excitement over battle, or even escape from dull underemployment or unemployment. The authors then most logically point to one way of cutting terrorism and the risk of wars (of which we now see so many going on around the world) and "a path to a safer world" among nations we now can see are "failed" or getting close to failing is by lowering birth rates through planned parenting, birth control, and, yes, abortion. The authors clearly show that rarely in history have women been combatants.
Understand that Potts' wife, Martha Campbell, who co-authored significant chapters, like her husband brings extensive scholarship and worldwide travel to bear on illuminating a modern woman's view. While such views remain still far from full acceptance in many cultures, including our own, the book's strong recommendation for more women's education as a major contributor to better family planning availability and fewer unplanned pregnancies surely is de rigueur among anyone doing strategic thinking about solving our pressing global problems.
The deep biological nature of human evolution will not be altered easily. The world remains dominated by male leaders who all too often feel so bloody good about solutions than seem to require bloodletting. One could point to our Iraq invasion and countless prior sorties into battle which could have been avoided by less testosterone dominated negotiations.
Perhaps as the number of nations armed with nuclear weapons grows, as it surely will, major powers may be more globally fixated on planetary survival by means proposed by the authors. But then again, perhaps not. And of course people who purport to bring us absolute security have in history often lead us to absolute tyranny.
Potts had co-authored with world renowned anthropologist, Roger Short, a ground breaking earlier book, "Ever since Adam and Eve: The Evolution of Human Sexuality' in 1999 which I reviewed for Amazon, writing "that the main evolutionary drive for humans and mammals generally has been and is SEX, for the key to our existence is the need to produce the BEST next generation. For many this book will prove an epiphany of understanding, a creation of more reverence for life, but one not based on the mythology of religion, but on the clear facts of science." Now in the nuclear age, where planetary destruction looms in multiple forms both nuclear and environmental we best find a new modus vivendi one which will provide a workable form of making love, but without war.
About the author: Collins is a free lance writer living in Washington, DC. His views are his own.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A must read, December 27, 2008
This review is from: Sex and War: How Biology Explains Warfare and Terrorism and Offers a Path to a Safer World (Hardcover)
In my opinion Malcolm Potts & Tom Hayden's Sex and War is a must read. The authors have impeccable credentials as authors of this text, Potts as a physician who has worked in many troubles areas of the world and led the drive to give women freedom of reproductive choice many years ago, Hayden as an award winning science writer. The racy title does not fully show the content, which is a very serious look at the whole story of men (not women) and war. Of course women are mentioned at length (almost always as victims), but it is we men that create the problems, and the authors constantly refer back to chimpanzee aggression. This is a serious & disturbing book, but Potts & Hayden do offer glimmers of hope & solutions to prevent the slide into anarchy that we may be facing. The book opens with a chapter on the horrible aftermath of the Bangladesh secession, in which Potts was involved as a physician. He tells us that it may have been the greatest case of mass rape in history. Many other horror stories about war, its combatants and its victims are used to show very clearly how Homo sapiens is destroying its own species and with it, the planet we inhabit. They offer glimpses of hope and solution, but caution that such hope is ephemeral.
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