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michelle1113's review against another edition
3.0
The author introduced interesting, original theories explaining human attitudes towards war and how those attitudes have evolved, but she presented almost no evidence to back up her theories.
lucha_kaiju's review against another edition
5.0
Excellent, engaging, and well researched, 'Blood Rites' examines the remarkable transition of early humans from prey to predator. Along the way the deeply rooted fear we still carry has played a major role in our nightmares, the development of religions (rooted as they are in slaughter and bloodletting for the purposes of appeasement), and in our entertainment (horror and monster cinema). But the focus of the book is on how we overcame one monster by becoming one ourselves. The excitement of violence and war against our own species is both a remnant of our transition from prey to predator, and is now the monster that we best learn to overcome. My review and summary does this book no justice. This book is informative, entertaining and was richly rewarding.
jiujensu's review against another edition
4.0
The main point understanding religious feelings humans bring to war as opposed to why is war more generally.
The book is freedom 1997 but still surprisingly relevant.
War is like love; it always finds a away. -- Bertolt Brecht
It starts out with the ancient predator prey and hunter gatherer explanations. I'm not as well versed in that, but it comes together looking at sacrifice and those rituals and how that meant we we were always concerned about being prey. A collective defense was needed then as now -->war, sacrifice.
Chapter 13 was most interesting - war worship. Nazi, state shinto, American patriotism. This was mostly about war as a religion. Twenty years later, we're talking about the churches teaching this Christian nationalism, swapping out bible teaching for nationalism.
She answers in this chapter two questions I always wonder about and never have an answer for. The first is what happened to separation of church and state, why isn't that treasured value anymore? War blurred the wall between separation of church and state, it turns out.
The second big life question she answers is why not socialism? It's because we're more likely to band together to defend ourselves than give up a weekend to build a dam or help w harvest - socialism has no blood sacrifice. I guess i didn't think of US war as defensive so that made less sense, but she makes a good argument that we always portray ourselves as the victims. Defense would be the priority there.
The point "was not so much religious belief as belief in the value if religion," historian Stephen J. Whitfield has argued, and above all "the conviction that religion was virtually synonymous with American nationalism." I feel like this is how we got Christian nationalism or what primed people for trump maybe.
She mentions topics that i've been reading a lot about in this decade- white supremacy, anti-semitism, and Christian millinarianism but just in passing to address what was thought to be the broader more inclusive worship of war.
She hits on two very frustrating elements of our culture in describing American patriotism as distinctive. Flag worship and invocation of not exactly Christian god of civil religion are things that i am at a loss for feeling the sane reverence for as many Americans. Ours is distinctive from the nazi and shinto bc it lacks godlike figure - democracy. But have we crossed that line electing someone line trump i wonder?
She ends the book on a fairly hopeful note for the subject matter - fighting the institution of war itself rather than opposing individual wars and such.
----
There were a few things that reminded me of another book, Jesus and John Wayne.
In chapter 13, she starts by describing a WW1 image of jesus in khaki looking down a gun barrel to discuss the worship of war.
In talking about the evolution of war to smaller conflicts with greater civilian casualties, instead of disappearing, war became decentralized. "With Rambo and his ilk, Hollywood offers up a denationalized, generic warrior-hero, a man of few words and limited loyalties, suitable for universal emulation." This is the hyper masculine ideal discussed in Jesus and John Wayne. It goes against actual turn the other cheek peace loving teachings of Jesus, but they accept this model anyway.
The book is freedom 1997 but still surprisingly relevant.
War is like love; it always finds a away. -- Bertolt Brecht
It starts out with the ancient predator prey and hunter gatherer explanations. I'm not as well versed in that, but it comes together looking at sacrifice and those rituals and how that meant we we were always concerned about being prey. A collective defense was needed then as now -->war, sacrifice.
Chapter 13 was most interesting - war worship. Nazi, state shinto, American patriotism. This was mostly about war as a religion. Twenty years later, we're talking about the churches teaching this Christian nationalism, swapping out bible teaching for nationalism.
She answers in this chapter two questions I always wonder about and never have an answer for. The first is what happened to separation of church and state, why isn't that treasured value anymore? War blurred the wall between separation of church and state, it turns out.
The second big life question she answers is why not socialism? It's because we're more likely to band together to defend ourselves than give up a weekend to build a dam or help w harvest - socialism has no blood sacrifice. I guess i didn't think of US war as defensive so that made less sense, but she makes a good argument that we always portray ourselves as the victims. Defense would be the priority there.
The point "was not so much religious belief as belief in the value if religion," historian Stephen J. Whitfield has argued, and above all "the conviction that religion was virtually synonymous with American nationalism." I feel like this is how we got Christian nationalism or what primed people for trump maybe.
She mentions topics that i've been reading a lot about in this decade- white supremacy, anti-semitism, and Christian millinarianism but just in passing to address what was thought to be the broader more inclusive worship of war.
She hits on two very frustrating elements of our culture in describing American patriotism as distinctive. Flag worship and invocation of not exactly Christian god of civil religion are things that i am at a loss for feeling the sane reverence for as many Americans. Ours is distinctive from the nazi and shinto bc it lacks godlike figure - democracy. But have we crossed that line electing someone line trump i wonder?
She ends the book on a fairly hopeful note for the subject matter - fighting the institution of war itself rather than opposing individual wars and such.
----
There were a few things that reminded me of another book, Jesus and John Wayne.
In chapter 13, she starts by describing a WW1 image of jesus in khaki looking down a gun barrel to discuss the worship of war.
In talking about the evolution of war to smaller conflicts with greater civilian casualties, instead of disappearing, war became decentralized. "With Rambo and his ilk, Hollywood offers up a denationalized, generic warrior-hero, a man of few words and limited loyalties, suitable for universal emulation." This is the hyper masculine ideal discussed in Jesus and John Wayne. It goes against actual turn the other cheek peace loving teachings of Jesus, but they accept this model anyway.
punkgodofthestraightrazor's review
4.0
Very interesting and well written. A bit dated, but still a solid work.
kirkspockreads's review
3.0
uhhh this book was interesting at first, but it kind of fizzles out at the end, and now i'm not sure if i agree with her hypothesis about why we go to war.
the history/culutural things i learned but didn't know before were all very interesting.
the history/culutural things i learned but didn't know before were all very interesting.
somechelsea's review
4.0
More academic than I would have liked overall (at least in terms of general accessibility), but still an engaging read about how some of our species' obsessions with war an violence could have started.
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