Customer Reviews

Warless Societies and the Origin of War

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is an outstanding reference for those seeking to understand how war came about and especially whether all societies were and are prone to war. Kelley presents a rigorously logical exposition of the notion that war is relatively recent and a result of social organization. All societies kill, but only those that are segmented and labeled appear to engage in large scale planned violence. Sometimes his conclusions are counterintuitive - as when he argues that, rather than scarcity, it is abundance that leads to war: "...it is under the latter circumstances that that a society can afford to have enemies for neighbors." While the prose can be somewhat dry at times, the reader is rewarded with numerous thought-provoking insights that are missing in watered down accounts of war intended for the general audience.

First let me say that the four stars are for the content rather than the readability of this book, which is aimed at other professional anthropologists. It is a very valuable study, very much in line with the recent works of Lawrence Kelley ("War Before Civilization")and Keith F. Otterbein ("How War Began")and other scholars.

The good news is that contrary to the "killer ape theory" of forty years ago, modern anthropological analyses prove that the human race has no genetically transmitted "instinct" to wage war. Humans share with chimps a genetic tendency toward aggression. But "aggression" does not always equal war. Kelly emphasizes that although nonliterate societies can and do wage deadly wars, there is little evidence for war in the very early prehistory of Homo sapiens. This seems to show that, in theory at least, war is not an ineradicable form of human behavior. It results from social forces and not from our DNA.

The bad news is that Kelly's prose is, as other reviewers have said, typically dry and academic. Fortunately it isn't laden with impenetrable jargon. It's just very tedious in the way that too many professional publications are. If Kelly had made the book friendlier for the general reader, I'd have given it five stars.

I agree with the previous review in its critic: the book is arid. I could not finish it: I started with the first forty pages and I jumped till the end. Books are to be read: if they are deadly boring, nobody will read them, therefore they will be used for nothing.

However, I had the feeling that the author, in order to defend his ideas, has taken great pains to define precisely the term "war" and to construe a statistical base of warfare in primitive societies. So I am no expert to judge whether his thesis are right or wrong, but at least, he did it in a scientific way. Stadistics are similar to a laser knife in modern surgery: it alone does not save lifes, but without it, no way.

Other books written in a far more interesting way that I would recommend to read are the followingOther books on war that I would recommend would be:

- above all, the best, "War on Human Civilization" by Azar Gat;
- also, "War before Civilization. The Myth of the Peaceful Savage", by Lawrence Keeley; "How War Began" by Keith F. Otterbein; and "War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires" by Peter Turchin.

I read through the book no problem. Anyone looking for some sort of party while reading a book, go stick to the pedestrian barnes and nobles hits that promote suspect archaeological evidence as 'warfare' and socio-biological theories for war as 'universal fact' (except all the exceptions to the rule past and present they seem to neglect). Kelly isnt here to appease that crowd. He's making a very elaborate argument about segmented and unsegmented hunter-gatherers and their patterns for (or lack of) warfare.

Establishing groundwork for his argument, he analyzes Fabbro's category of peaceful societies (which arent all hunter-gatherers but include: Ju/hoansi, Mbuti, Copper Eskimo, etc). Kelly then moves into social substitution, segmented and unsegmented societies. Thirdly, he uses a historic case study of the Jarawa and Bea hunters of the Andaman Islands as an example of an 'isolated lab' (but should still be subject to the possible historical impact of at least 2,000 years - even to pre-migration.). Finally, he establishes his own take on the origin of warfare centered around the previous chapters.

A great book for a critical take on the anthropology of war. Also recommended: R. Brian Ferguson, Jonathan Haas and even work by James Woodburn on immediate-return vs. delayed return hunter-gatherers to elaborate upon the segmented vs. unsegmented analysis.

This book is impossibly jargon-filled. The author writes as if addressing a tenure committee. Consider this sentence from the introduction: "Defining war and delineating the boundaries between war and other partially similar phenomena raise important issues with regard to both classifying hunter-gatherer societies in terms of the presence and frequency of warfare and ascertaining the point in a sequence of conflictual events at which war has begun." After reading this sentence how many readers will proceed any further? I would recommend Richard Keeley's War Before Civilization as a concise, forceful argument full of vivid examples written in plain English for the general reader.