Writing to an educated reader who need not be a scholar, LeBlanc reviews the myth of the noble savage in actually very exhaustive detail that includes 17 pages of references to the important ethnographic literature, an index, and illustrations. The book is a five-star product because of its agreeable language, consistent argument, and comprehensive organization. LeBlanc combined archaeological, historical, and ethnographic data to review human development through primitive, archaic, and historic phases.
Chapter 1 sets out two axes of the myth that (1) earlier societies were peaceful organizations that lived in (2) ecological balance with nature. Chapter 2 shows that the earliest habitations stressed and exhausted their environment. Chapter 3 catalogues the weapons, armor, and the war practices like cannibalism that pervaded the 'toolkit' of the early settlements. Chapter 4 discusses aggression among hominids, describing how chimpanzee bands prey on neighboring chimpanzee bands by using all the devices of collective deceit to fool and entrap other chimpanzees. Chapter 5 shows how foragers like the Bushmen, pygmies, and Australian aborigines operated in regular war and the distribution of proteins in the diet show incipient class organization for male superiority. Chapter 6 details how tribal farming encourages and required predation among all neighbors. Chapter 7 reveals that warfare was the basis urbanization in archaic and historic societies.
Chapter 8 - 'War or peace for the future' - considers the archaeological data as evidence for the gradual decline of warfare among humans. This interesting theme might sound idealistic, but on a per-capita basis, the percentage of deaths per year from warfare has been steadily declining among humans as has the percentage of the population in military activity. LeBlanc's argument is, however, just Marxian - what we have to expect from a Harvard academic: economic reductionism an d rational self-interest. So, he writes, 'warfare has ultimately been a battle for scarce resources through the ages' and 'warfare...has been based on rational behavior for much of human history' (page 230).
If that were so, the percentage of deaths from warfare would not have been steadily declining because there are never enough resources and we constantly develop more resources to fight over. Rather, increasing rationality (for example, the growth of civil religion in the societal community) explains the decline in warfare. Warfare bases in non-rationality and irrationality, as all the unhappy outcomes demonstrate. A Harvard academic has to argue for environmentalism and peace to keep his colleagues at bay, but you can ignore this because so much of the book makes an informative case from the ethnographic data.
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The truth about men's continuing propensity for war
"Steven LeBlanc’s Constant Battles is an important book, because it thoroughlydebunks two popular fallacies about the evolution and nature of humans. Firstis the belief that early humans lived in harmony with nature, while takingdeliberate steps to conserve local resources. The second is that early and morerecent humans lived in peace with each other. Both of these ideas stem the“Noble Savage” notion first proposed by Jean-Jaques Rousseau."LeBlanc cites an overwhelming amount of evidence to show that both of theseideas are not only wrong, but also dangerous, because they tend to preventpeople from fully realizing the dimension of the threat they pose: There is nohope of fixing a problem unless you first recognize that it exists. Near the endof the book LeBlanc shows that, with such recognition, a path to peace isavailable. In an age of 14,000-mph missiles and swarms of smart drones, thiskind of revelation is vital."Richard E. Evans, author, The Female Imperative
Spitzenrezensionen aus USA
Derzeit tritt ein Problem beim Filtern der Rezensionen auf. Bitte versuche es später erneut.
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Bewertet in den USA am1. Juli 2013
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Bewertet in den USA am11. März 2021
The truth about men's continuing propensity for war"Steven LeBlanc’s Constant Battles is an important book, because it thoroughly
Bewertet in den USA am11. März 2021
debunks two popular fallacies about the evolution and nature of humans. First
is the belief that early humans lived in harmony with nature, while taking
deliberate steps to conserve local resources. The second is that early and more
recent humans lived in peace with each other. Both of these ideas stem the
“Noble Savage” notion first proposed by Jean-Jaques Rousseau.
"LeBlanc cites an overwhelming amount of evidence to show that both of these
ideas are not only wrong, but also dangerous, because they tend to prevent
people from fully realizing the dimension of the threat they pose: There is no
hope of fixing a problem unless you first recognize that it exists. Near the end
of the book LeBlanc shows that, with such recognition, a path to peace is
available. In an age of 14,000-mph missiles and swarms of smart drones, this
kind of revelation is vital."
Richard E. Evans, author, The Female Imperative
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HENRI W.Bewertet in Kanada am 31. März 2019
Valuable perspective on the consequenses of environmental degradation
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James-philip HarriesBewertet in Großbritannien am 24. März 2016
The scorpion and the frog
