Beyond War: The Human Potential for Peace
by Douglas P. Fry
List Price:
Our Price: $10.00
You Save: $14.00 (58%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $9.93 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Douglas P. FryEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2007-02-16
ISBN: 0195309480
Number of pages: 352
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Book Reviews of Beyond War: The Human Potential for Peace
Book Review: Fry shreds it up
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the best book on "primitive" warfare out there for the basic reader currently (until Brian Ferguson releases later work). He shreds all the current anthropological arguments for humans being innately geared towards warfare whether biologically or through bogus surveys of primatology, ethnography or archaeology.
Fry correctly makes the distinction between nomadic hunter-gatherers being completely different from tribal horticulturalists and sedentary foragers when it comes to using them as exemplary models of lacking warfare. He covers their mechanisms of nullifying disputes and their kinship structure that prevents organized warfare.
The last chapter is pretty weak, but if you need a readable starting point for the anthropological dialog of warfare - this is the KEY place to start. if you dont have that above distinction in mind with nomadic foragers, your whole perspective is useless.
Summary of Beyond War: The Human Potential for Peace
The classic opening scene of 2001, A Space Odyssey shows an ape-man wreaking havoc with humanity's first invention--a bone used as a weapon to kill a rival. It's an image that fits well with popular notions of our species as inherently violent, with the idea that humans are--and always have been--warlike by nature. But as Douglas P. Fry convincingly argues in Beyond War, the facts show that our ancient ancestors were not innately warlike--and neither are we.Fry points out that, for perhaps ninety-nine percent of our history, for well over a million years, humans lived in nomadic hunter-and-gatherer groups, egalitarian bands where generosity was highly valued and warfare was a rarity. Drawing on archaeology and fascinating fieldwork on hunter-gatherer bands from around the world, Fry debunks the idea that war is ancient and inevitable. For instance, among Aboriginal Australians--who numbered some 750,000 individuals before the arrival of Europeans, all living in hunter-gathering groups--warfare was an extreme anomaly. There was individual violence and aggression, of course, but the Aborigines had sophisticated methods of resolving disputes, controlling individual outbursts, and preventing loss of life. Fry shows that, far from being natural, warfare actually appeared quite recently along with changes in social organization and especially the rise of states. But Fry also points out that even today, when war seems ever present (at least on television), the vast majority of us live peaceful, nonviolent lives. We are not as warlike as it might seem, and if we can learn from our ancestors, we may be able to move beyond war to provide real justice and security for the people of the world.
A profoundly heartening view of human nature, Beyond War offers a hopeful perspective on our species and a positive prognosis for a future without war.
Information Systems Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Audiobooks on Cassette
- Audiobooks on CD
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- e-Books
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Peace and Human Nature
Peacemaking among Primatesby Frans B. M. de Waal
Harvard University Press; Published: 1990-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $17.00
Price in other shops:
Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animalsby Frans B. M. de Waal
Harvard University Press; Published: 1997-10-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $17.55
Price in other shops:
The Bridge to Humanity: How Affect Hunger Trumps the Selfish Geneby Walter Goldschmidt
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2005-07-21; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.90
Price in other shops:
A Natural History of PeaceVanderbilt University Press; Published: 1996-06-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $24.95
Keeping the Peace: Conflict Resolution and Peaceful Societies Around the World (War and Society (Routledge (Firm)), V. 8.)Routledge; Published: 2003-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $20.00
Price in other shops:
Ride of the Second Horseman: The Birth and Death of Warby Robert L. O'Connell
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1997-10-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.49
Price in other shops:
Warless Societies and the Origin of Warby Raymond C. Kelly
University of Michigan Press; Published: 2000-11-15; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $70.00
The Human Potential for Peace: An Anthropological Challenge to Assumptions about War and Violenceby Douglas P. Fry
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2005-08-11; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $69.95
Man the Hunted: Primates, Predators, and Human Evolutionby Donna Hart, Robert Wald Sussman
Basic Books; Published: 2005-03-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.35
Price in other shops:
Beyond War: The Human Potential for Peaceby Douglas P. Fry
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2007-02-16; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.03
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldierby Ishmael Beah
Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Published: 2008-08-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.72
Price in other shops:
The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of Warby David Livingstone Smith
St. Martin's Press; Published: 2007-08-07; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.17
Price in other shops:
The Human Potential for Peace: An Anthropological Challenge to Assumptions about War and Violenceby Douglas P. Fry
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2005-07-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $24.90
Price in other shops:
The Ethics of What We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matterby Peter Singer, Jim Mason
Rodale Books; Published: 2007-03-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.29
Price in other shops:
The Last Summer of Reasonby Tahar Djaout
Bison Books; Published: 2007-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.95
Price in other shops:
Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches: The Riddles of Cultureby Marvin Harris
Vintage; Published: 1989-12-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.75
Price in other shops:
Cannibals and Kings: Origins of Culturesby Marvin Harris
Vintage; Published: 1991-06-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.95
Price in other shops:
The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About Itby Paul Collier
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2008-08-22; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.69
Price in other shops:
How War Began (Texas a&M University Anthropology Series)by Keith F. Otterbein
Texas A&M University Press; Published: 2004-12-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $16.81
Price in other shops:
Moral Minds: The Nature of Right and Wrong (P.S.)by Marc Hauser
Harper Perennial; Published: 2007-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.54
Price in other shops: