Are humans by nature hierarchical or egalitarian? "Hierarchy in the
Forest" addresses this question by examining the evolutionary
origins of social and political behavior. Christopher Boehm, an
anthropologist whose fieldwork has focused on the political
arrangements of human and nonhuman primate groups, postulates that
egalitarianism is in effect a hierarchy in which the weak combine
forces to dominate the strong.
The political flexibility of our species is formidable: we can
be quite egalitarian, we can be quite despotic. "Hierarchy in the
Forest" traces the roots of these contradictory traits in
chimpanzee, bonobo, gorilla, and early human societies. Boehm looks
at the loose group structures of hunter-gatherers, then at tribal
segmentation, and finally at present-day governments to see how
these conflicting tendencies are reflected.
"Hierarchy in the Forest" claims new territory for biological
anthropology and evolutionary biology by extending the domain of
these sciences into a crucial aspect of human political and social
behavior. This book will be a key document in the study of the
evolutionary basis of genuine altruism.
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