War Before Civilization

De: Lawrence H. Keeley

Narrado por: Gary Appleton

The myth of the peace-loving "noble savage" is persistent and pernicious. Indeed, for the last fifty years, most popular and scholarly works have agreed that prehistoric warfare was rare, harmless, unimportant, and, like smallpox, a disease of civilized societies alone. Prehistoric warfare, according to this view, was little more than a ritualized game, where casualties were limited and the effects of aggression relatively mild.

Lawrence Keeley's groundbreaking War Before Civilization offers a devastating rebuttal to such comfortable myths and debunks the notion that warfare was introduced to primitive societies through contact with civilization. Building on much fascinating archeological and historical research and offering an astute comparison of warfare in civilized and prehistoric societies, from modern European states to the Plains Indians of North America, War Before Civilization convincingly demonstrates that prehistoric warfare was in fact more deadly, more frequent, and more ruthless than modern war.

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Reality

This book illuminates the reality of human existence which is neither Hobbesian nor Russeauian but much more complex. The fact is that war has almost always been a part of life and the myth of the noble savage is a dream of those who are isolated from these primitive societies. The individuals who have lived with the greatest peace are those within modern nation states where war is pushed out beyond their borders. In tribal society every man is a warrior and everyone bares the scars of war.