8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Simplistic look at one side of the creation-destruction paradigm, October 30, 2007
This review is from: Women, Power, and the Biology of Peace (Hardcover)
Creation and destruction are two sides of the same coin, and isolating destruction and trying to understand it alone is like trying to understand the world by studying it only by night and not by day, or trying to understand electricity by only looking at the negative charges. This book is incredibly simplistic in its understanding of this principle, and I expect mainly attractive to people with hidden, or not-so-hidden prejudices like the author's. Destruction is a necessary forerunner to creation, and history clearly shows that it is the destructive who are ultimately creative. Imagine the planet had only been populated by women in the kind of misty, feminine utopia envisaged by Judith Hand. The number of wars would have been far less in their history, but it would have been a long, peaceful existence in the stone age. No creation or destruction to disturb the status quo, no wars, but rather worryingly, a life expectancy of around 30 that eliminated far more than if wars had continued non-stop but creativity in medical technology had been imported from somewhere else (like the planet where all the men were living).
The wars that have taken place on earth have taken around 100 million lives, a figure which when analysed alone is shocking at showing man's destructivity. But when we consider that man's creative genius in medicine and food technology alone has resulted in a population double what it would have been, we see that man's creativity has saved the lives of around 3 BILLION, an enormous figure that doesn't even come into discussion here, but which is in fact a vital issue. It is awful to discuss human lives so simply in terms of figures, but it's a fact worth keeping in mind for those who see the world through feminist-coloured spectacles, and refuse to consider that destruction is all men are capable of. The mistake in this book is that the author takes all the marvelous products of men's creativity as just having naturally sprung out of nothing, having naturally evolved, and now women can make use of these wonders. Well, eliminate every man-made or man-invented wonder from the author's life, and ask her if man's destructivity has had more of an effect on her comfortable life, or man's creativity. Kill half of her friends and family, tell her she has just a few years to live, and see how she would have liked life in such a feminist utopia, bereft of male creativity. If she would still hold the same views, and so would the positive reviewers of this book, if we removed half of all the people they love from their lives, then I fully respect her and their positions. Those who would miss these people, however, should consider that the world consists of both light and dark, and those who concentrate on one side only will remain in the dark as far as understanding goes, much like the author and her fans.
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7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A work of vision grounded in science and human behavior, October 30, 2004
In Women, Power, And The Biology Of Peace, author Judith Hand (an expert in the field of Animal Behavior and Evolutionary Biology) addresses the biological basis of war and describes necessary steps needed to achieve lasting peace. Emphasizing the crucial role women must play in partnership with men to make the dream of a peaceful future into reality, Women, Power, And The Biology Of Peace is an uplifting message advocating positive change for a truly better world. A work of vision grounded in science and human behavior as surely as noble ideals.
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8 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good book on power and peace, December 10, 2003
This review is from: Women, Power, and the Biology of Peace (Hardcover)
This is an excellent compilation of studies and the author's insightful conclusions about power, war and peace, as seen through the actions of men and women, while the author questions the unavoidableness of war. It's not only a book of facts and conclusions; it's a damn good read.
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