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desertjarhead505 's review for:
Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War
by Barbara Ehrenreich
Wow! I was already a fan of Barbara Ehrenreich, based on her more recent work, when this book caught my eye. This is a thoughtful, skeptical, probing, thorough exploration of one of the most important and puzzling problems our species faces.
Dr. Ehrenreich makes a strong argument for turning some of our conventional wisdom about the development of human societies upside down, most especially our somewhat grandiose belief that from the time our distant hominid ancestors climbed down from the trees and moved out onto the grasslands, we were the new apex predators on the block. In fact, both logic and evidence make it easier to believe that there was a long era when hominids and early humans were scavengers at the kills of big predators, and fairly often their prey.
She then traces the entwined development of hunting, religion, war, and gender roles from that stage through the end of the 20th century.
For anyone interested in warfare, religion, individual and group human psychology, or the history of the shifting roles and status of gender and social class, this is a must-read.
Dr. Ehrenreich makes a strong argument for turning some of our conventional wisdom about the development of human societies upside down, most especially our somewhat grandiose belief that from the time our distant hominid ancestors climbed down from the trees and moved out onto the grasslands, we were the new apex predators on the block. In fact, both logic and evidence make it easier to believe that there was a long era when hominids and early humans were scavengers at the kills of big predators, and fairly often their prey.
She then traces the entwined development of hunting, religion, war, and gender roles from that stage through the end of the 20th century.
For anyone interested in warfare, religion, individual and group human psychology, or the history of the shifting roles and status of gender and social class, this is a must-read.