There are plenty of self-proclaimed "realists" advancing the argument that war comes naturally to human beings, but few scholars with the knowledge to effectively question that view and the writing ability to make their challenge a pleasure to read. Fry is one of them.
I won't get into the debate itself, better to buy the book and let Fry lay it out for you. I would, however, disagree with the previous reviewer about the importance of defining "war" before concluding that it is pervasive in human life. As Fry shows quite convincingly, you can only make the case for the universality of "war" if you define it as just about any lethal violence between three or more people. So a jealous man and his brother killing a third man (even within the same community) is considered to be "war" in these studies. Very misleading, dishonest science.
The example from New Guinea is equally misleading. The reviewer is correct about the aggressive relations between groups there, but does he really think a tightly-packed island is a relevant model for the conditions in which human beings evolved? The world was a big, empty place from the perspective of early humans. Walking away from conflict was always an option. By the time studies were conducted in New Guinea, population density had reached a point where there was no place left to go in order to avoid conflict. This is more relevant to present conditions than to prehistory.
But the reviewer's point about whether or not there is a universal human propensity to behave aggressively toward those not in our group (language, culture) is a good one. My reading of Fry's argument is that he acknowledges that humans have the "capacity" for violence, but not necessarily the "tendency." Obviously, we are capable of horrible brutality, but the notion that it comes naturally to us is belied by the severity and ubiquity of post-traumatic stress in those who have acted in violence -- other than psychopaths. Wolves and sharks don't suffer after having killed. Humans, by and large, do.
In any case, I highly recommend Beyond War to anyone who wants to hear the other side of the story, and who wants to enjoy themselves as they learn.
Christopher Ryan, author of Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality
ISBN-13:
978-0195384611
ISBN-10:
019538461X
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