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Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior Revised Edition
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Are humans by nature hierarchical or egalitarian? Hierarchy in the Forest addresses this question by examining the evolutionary origins of social and political behavior. Christopher Boehm, an anthropologist whose fieldwork has focused on the political arrangements of human and nonhuman primate groups, postulates that egalitarianism is in effect a hierarchy in which the weak combine forces to dominate the strong.
The political flexibility of our species is formidable: we can be quite egalitarian, we can be quite despotic. Hierarchy in the Forest traces the roots of these contradictory traits in chimpanzee, bonobo, gorilla, and early human societies. Boehm looks at the loose group structures of hunter-gatherers, then at tribal segmentation, and finally at present-day governments to see how these conflicting tendencies are reflected.
Hierarchy in the Forest claims new territory for biological anthropology and evolutionary biology by extending the domain of these sciences into a crucial aspect of human political and social behavior. This book will be a key document in the study of the evolutionary basis of genuine altruism.
- ISBN-100674006917
- ISBN-13978-0674006911
- EditionRevised
- PublisherHarvard University Press
- Publication dateNovember 2, 2001
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions6.14 x 0.64 x 9.21 inches
- Print length304 pages
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“Combing an exhaustive ethnographic survey of human societies from groups of hunter-gatherers to contemporary residents of the Balkans with a detailed analysis of the behavioral attributes of non-human primates (chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos), Boehm focuses on whether humans are hierarchical or egalitarian by nature...[Boehm's hypotheses] are invariably intriguing and well documented...He raises topics of wide interest and his book should get attention.”―Publishers Weekly
“Boehm has been the first to look at egalitarianism with a cold, unromantic eye. He sees it as a victory over hierarchical tendencies, which are equally marked in our species. I would predict that his insightful examination will reverberate within anthropology and the social sciences as well as among biologists interested in the evolution of social systems.”―Frans de Waal, Emory University
“Hierarchy in the Forest is an original and stimulating contribution to thinking about the origins of egalitarianism. I personally find Boehm's ideas convincing, but whether one agrees with him or not, he has formulated his hypotheses in such a way that this book is likely to set the terms of the discussion for the forseeable future.”―Barbara Smuts, University of Michigan
“The most unique and interesting feature of this clear, well written book is the way Boehm links the study of nonhuman primates (particularly chimpanzees) to traditional concepts of political anthropology. As a political scientist, I was intrigued by Boehm's suggestion that democracy, both ancient and modern, could be understood as the expression of the same natural dispositions that support the egalitarianism of nomadic bands and sedentary tribes. I expect that many scholars in biology, anthropology, and the social sciences would learn from this stimulating book. Even those who disagree with Boehm's arguments are likely to be provoked in instructive ways.”―Larry Arnhart, Northern Illinois University
“Chris Boehm boldly and cogently attacks a whole orthodoxy in anthropology which sees hunter-gatherer 'egalitarianism' as somehow the basic form of human society. No praise can be too high for Boehm's brilliant and courageous book.”―Robin Fox, Rutgers University
“From a theoretical perspective, some of the most convincing arguments presented by Boehm center around the pivotal role of language in the evolution of egalitarianism More provocative, however, are Boehm's ideas on how between-group selection has operated to generate egalitarianism.”―Harold Gouzoules, The Quarterly Review of Biology
“Hierarchy in the Forest claims new territory for biological anthropology and evolutionary biology by extending the domain of these sciences into a crucial aspect of human political and social behavior. This book will be a key document in the study of the evolutionary basis of genuine altruism.”―Primate Science
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Product details
- Publisher : Harvard University Press; Revised edition (November 2, 2001)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 304 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0674006917
- ISBN-13 : 978-0674006911
- Lexile measure : 1380L
- Item Weight : 15.2 ounces
- Dimensions : 6.14 x 0.64 x 9.21 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #605,878 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #142 in Mammal Zoology
- #169 in Physical Anthropology (Books)
- #675 in General Anthropology
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

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The URL is: christopher-boehm.com
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The development of tool use and language enabled humans (or their ancestors) to more effectively form coalitions, overthrow abusive alphas, and establish and maintain a "reverse hierarchy" whereby the weak many ruled over the strong few. The author argues that once a few early human bands established this reverse hierarchy, this example spread through other human bands until, by no later than 100,000 BCE, all human bands were living in reverse hierarchy.
Further, this reverse hierarchy leveled, to some extent, reproductive success/failure within the group, thereby reducing within-group selection and increasing between-group selection. Between-group selection would reward altruistic behavior, as altruistic bands would be more cohesive fighting forces and the individuals would suffer less variation in protein intake.
Interestingly, the author shows that reverse hierarchy is universal among nomadic foragers and common among pre-literate agriculturalists and pastoralists. This suggests that humans maintained egalitarian status in the early years of the Neolithic Revolution.
Boehm is an intelligent and thoughtful observer of political and social realities, but he is a cultural anthropologist, not a political scientist, not a game theorist, not a primatologist, not even a biological anthropologist. The main argument he is making is a slippery departure from his own field.
Boehm would do well to stick to what he knows. He is an excellent ethnographer. His published writings on the Serbian tribes of Montenegro represent a significant and solid contribution to cultural anthropology scholarship.
In "Hierarchy of the Forest," Boehm's argument relies on disciplines about which he lacks sufficient expertise to come down as strongly as he does. His argument may be attractive to those of us who have an interest in building egalitarianism in political, social, and cultural practices, but it is best to avoid the trap that Boehm has fallen into, being seduced by an attractive hypothesis and sacrificing rigor.
Top reviews from other countries
Also highly recommend Boehm’s more recent work ‘Moral Origins’ which develops his argument. For tens of thousands of years our culturally modern ancestors maintained highly egalitarian societies where cheating, bullying and stealing by upstarts we’re actively monitored and suppressed. He shows how our human nature originated, particularly why we don’t like to be bossed around and dominated.
It’s surely about time that we replace the modern hierarchical structures within our modern institutions with new forms of egalitarian models such as holocracy. See Brian Robertson’s work on this. We need to rid ourselves of the means by which the modern strutting pompous arrogant but shallow and ignorant ‘alphas’ manage to achieve power and influence. Think Trump, Erdogan, Putin, Orban, Boris Johnson ... Saddam, and further back, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and Mao.






