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Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War Paperback – May 15, 1998
| Barbara Ehrenreich (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
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An ALA Notable Book
A New York Times Notable Book
In Blood Rites, Barbara Ehrenreich confronts the mystery of the human attraction to violence: What draws our species to war and even makes us see it as a kind of sacred undertaking? Blood Rites takes us on an original journey from the elaborate human sacrifices of the ancient world to the carnage and holocaust of twentieth-century "total war." Sifting through the fragile records of prehistory, Ehrenreich discovers the wellspring of war in an unexpected place--not in a "killer instinct" unique to the males of our species but in the blood rites early humans performed to reenact their terrifying experience of predation by stronger carnivores. Brilliant in conception, rich in scope, Blood Rites is a monumental work that will transform our understanding of the greatest single threat to human life.
- Print length304 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHolt Paperbacks
- Publication dateMay 15, 1998
- Dimensions6 x 0.79 x 9 inches
- ISBN-100805057870
- ISBN-13978-0805057874
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“Ehrenreich has outdone herself in breaking with conventional history, and the result is thrilling in that seeing-the-world-anew way.” ―Susan Faludi, The Nation
“Splendid . . . .A fascinating perspective on our staunch devotion to mass, mutual slaughter. Blood Rites is that rare animal, a nonfiction page-turner.” ―Newsweek
About the Author
Barbara Ehrenreich is the bestselling author of Nickel and Dimed, Bait and Switch, Bright-sided, This Land Is Their Land, and Dancing in the Streets, among others. A frequent contributor to Harper's and The Nation, she has also been a columnist at The New York Times and Time magazine. She is the winner of the L.A. Times Book Prize for Current Interest and ALA Notable Books for Nonfiction.
Ehrenreich was born in Butte, Montana, when it was still a bustling mining town. She studied physics at Reed College, and earned a Ph.D. in cell biology from Rockefeller University. Rather than going into laboratory work, she got involved in activism, and soon devoted herself to writing her innovative journalism. She lives and works in Florida.
From The Washington Post
Product details
- Publisher : Holt Paperbacks (May 15, 1998)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 304 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0805057870
- ISBN-13 : 978-0805057874
- Item Weight : 13.6 ounces
- Dimensions : 6 x 0.79 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #2,825,707 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3,447 in Violence in Society (Books)
- #72,848 in Military History (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

BARBARA EHRENREICH is the author of fourteen books, including the bestselling Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch. She lives in Virginia, USA.
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Tery Foster
The only effective weapon that ancient men and women had to fight with was fire. We know that the use of fire is very ancient because hearths dating back 750,000 years have been found in Israel. But the use of fire may have had less to do with keeping warm, than with keeping predators at bay. Images of rings of fire that abound in stories and operas (I'm thinking here of the ring of fire that Wotan uses to protect his sleeping daughter Brunnhilde), may have originated in the use of fire as a kind of fence around an encampment to protect the humans within.
Eventually, humans acquired better equipment in the shape of horses and arrows that meant that they could protect themselves far more efficiently from the big cats. Ms. Ehrenreich's basic argument is that when humans made the gigantic leap from prey to predator, the "underemployed" males of the tribe, whose job it had been to fight off the predators, needed something new to do in order to channel their energies. That new something turned out to be war.
I do not know if Ms. Ehrenreich is right about this. But I think she is right to point out that there is much more to war than killing people, even though that is its salient feature. Now that I think about it, there is a religious quality about war, that is unexpected. After all, you do not expect sanctioned murder to be religious in nature. But it is striking that down through the ages, masses, sacrifices, libations and other religious acts have been performed before a battle has started.
If you are interested in a provocative discussion about war, read this book. Four stars.
Well, it's easy. Indulge in war and more war. This and nothing more is the author's take. Not one word anywhere of any other cultural achievement by men.
And also, no mention of any tenable alternative theory for aggression in males. No psychology to speak of and nothing but the exaltation of women in almost all cases and senses. Talk about a writer who protests too much. Too bad Mrs. Ehrenreich misses the barn door by quite a way. She doesn't see that the main cause of war is woman.
I guess that's taboo for her and most people. Best to avoid the matter altogether.
The causes of war lie in emotional trauma and the limited channels of exorcism traumatized types need if sanity is to be maintained or restored.
The chief agent of emotional (and physical) trauma in the life of any boy or girl is the mother. War and aggression are, therefore, caused by Matrophpbia - hatred toward the "Terrible Mother."
Since this cache of rage is difficult if not impossible to alleviate, it builds to critical levels. All forms of social violence can be traced to this syndrome. It is the underlying reason for sado-mascohistic behavior and outlooks.
When an infant discovers that the source of all it needs to survive and grow isn't necessarily good, caring, noble or moral, and that its mother can in fact be indifferent, cruel, oppressive, hypocritical and violent, consciousness is deeply shocked, disturbed and confused. All that one believes is good and noble is now seen as ambivalent and untrustworthy, and one blames oneself for being victimized by such an immoral being. One blames oneself for needing and loving the Terrible Mother. The disease of psychophobia has been contracted, the dire condition no on wants to speak about.
One beats oneself up for needing a mother who not only gives what is required, but all too often withholds what is required. This self-hate or autophobia is the chief cause of a person's hostility toward themselves and other people in the world, and the syndrome has not date on it. It's been there from day and year one.
Other supposed causes of conflict and war exist mostly by way of sublimation and displacement. We must not rule them out, but we must also face the unfaceable if violence is to cease. No man who is not pathologically irritated and disturbed in his deep mind and body goes out to witlessly attack or slaughter anyone.
There's more to the sad tale that this, but it amazes me that so much can be thought and written and still so little known about the problems of Matrophobia and Adultism and their vile consequences.
*** *** ***
Top reviews from other countries
The main premise - that our warlike passions stem from our ancient fear of being the prey of the larger and stronger predators that roamed the plains together with prehistoric man - is certainly intriguing. There is plenty of anecdotal support for the possibility both from ancient literature and more modern sociological writing that Ehrenreich brings to bear when developing the theme.
It is hardly a scientific treatise, as it does not compare the theory developed to alternative ones, so one can find it intuitively appealing and like it but it will remain difficult to make an informed choice on whether the theory offers better explanatory power than alternatives, unless you are already an expert in the field. For that part alone, the book deserves 4 stars in my opinion, as it is at least interesting, and it brings some fresh perspectives (and interesting historical trivia) to bear.
Where the book starts unravelling in my opinion is the second part, which purports to apply the prey theory to war. Anyone reasonably familiar with existing explanations of human predatory instincts as well as the difficulties most people have in killing (unless operatively conditioned to do so), will have an extremely hard time swallowing the generalizations and extremely selective view the author presents. Introducing Dawkins' 'Memetics' a handful of pages before the end also does the book no favours, as it seems more of an afterthought than a fully developed explanatory route. On top, I found the weaving in of the theory from the first part often not particularly natural - as if the author wrote two separate books and then found herself encouraged to bind the two together.
In terms of individual motivations and blockages to war and killing, Grossman's On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society is a much better book. It provides the more in-depth and much better argued research on the topic and disproves many of the statements on the development of warfare made by Ehrenreich (with plenty of qualitative and quantitative studies explained and cited supporting the arguments). In terms of societal development and the use of warfare in this context, Diamond is in my opinion the much better guide - Guns Germs & Steel: The Fates of Human Societies or Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed both being quite insightful, and certaily better developed. For a brief but much more correct history on the use of small versus large forces, and professionals versus conscripts, the introduction to Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs) is another good start.
Overall this is the weakest of Ehrenreich's books I have read so far. She certainly invested significant effort into writing it but it falls just short of good due to the poor (and partially ideologically motivated, rather than properly analyzed) second half. If the topic is of general interest, you would do well to go through the first part of the book, in case you want to explore the theory developed further - the author's own application is in my opinion not great.
On the other hand, do not judge the author by this book, as her later work, where she experienced the topics she wrote about first hand, is actually quite good.
Es empfiehlt sich allen Lesern, die ihr Verständnis für die dunkle Seite der Menschheit vertiefen möchten.







