Constant battles why we fight

Now a new technological revolution imagined by LeBlanc and many others might increase our carrying capacity for a while, and then what? If he dealt with that side of the equation, solutions would include promoting contraception and reproductive responsibility. Maybe the publisher would only accept his book with an uplifting ending that endorses the status quo.

Rather than pursuing the futile goal of ever-increasing resources, we have the potential for eliminating warfare by decreasing our demands for those resources. LeBlanc , with Katherine E. Register Review by Les U. Knight Steven LeBlanc thoroughly documents how our protohuman ancestors consistently over populated and exceeded their local carrying capacity.

In spite of the pronounced impact industrialized states make on the environment, their technology and slow growth rates enable them to live well below the carrying capacity. The decline in warfare among those countries is incredibly strong. Rate this book. LeBlanc , Katherine E. With armed conflict in the Persian Gulf now upon us, Harvard archaeologist Steven LeBlanc takes a long-term view of the nature and roots of war, presenting a controversial thesis: The notion of the "noble savage" living in peace with one another and in harmony with nature is a fantasy.

In Constant Battles: The Myth of the Peaceful, Noble Savage , LeBlanc contends that warfare and violent conflict have existed throughout human history, and that humans have never lived in ecological balance with nature.

The start of the second major U. But as LeBlanc brilliantly argues, the archaeological record shows that the warfare and ecological destruction we find today fit into patterns of human behavior that have gone on for millions of years.

Constant Battles surveys human history in terms of social organization-from hunter gatherers, to tribal agriculturalists, to more complex societies.

His own fieldwork combined with his archaeological, ethnographic, and historical research, presents a riveting account of how, throughout human history, people always have outgrown the carrying capacity of their environment, which has led to war.

Ultimately, though, LeBlanc's point of view is reassuring and optimistic. As he explains the roots of warfare in human history, he also demonstrates that warfare today has far less impact than it did in the past. He also argues that, as awareness of these patterns and the advantages of modern technology increase, so does our ability to avoid war in the future.

History Anthropology Nonfiction Climate Change. More Details. Steven A. LeBlanc 21 books 2 followers. Search review text. This is a great book if you like anthropology and don't mind having some popular notions about human prehistory and primitive cultures dispelled. LeBlanc argues that We need to recognize and accept the idea of a nonpeaceful past for the entire time of human existence. Though there were certainly times and places during which peace prevailed, overall such interludes seem to have been short-lived and infrequent.

The author, an archaeologist, does an excellent job proving the "constant battles" part of his thesis. A high percentage of prehistoric human remains show signs of violence--bones broken fending off blows, stab wounds, embedded arrowheads, spear tips, and axe heads, and signs of scalping and beheading.

There were often mass graves, most commonly occupied by men showing signs of violent death at times when the simultaneous death of so many people would be hard to explain by natural causes. Settlements in inconvenient but easily defensible locations surrounded by walls, guard towers, and stockpiling stones that were most likely used as missiles.

A historical overview of war and peace through differing modes of production, … Expand. The forum: The decline of war. The debate on the waning of war has recently moved into higher gear. This forum contributes to that debate.

Steven Pinker observes that a decline in war does not require a romantic theory of human … Expand. Together with politics, economics and religion, war is one of the fundamental factors that can shape a society and group identities. In the prehistoric world, the sources for the study of war are … Expand.

In … Expand. Resource scarcity drives lethal aggression among prehistoric hunter-gatherers in central California.

Population is the main driver of war group size and conflict casualties. Related Papers. Abstract 53 Citations Related Papers.