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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.S. military action in the Persian
Gulf, combined with regular headlines about spiraling environmental
destruction, would tempt anyone to conclude that humankind is fast
approaching a catastrophic end. 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. LeBlanc takes the reader on his own digs
around the world -- from New Guinea to the Southwestern U.S. to
Turkey -- to show how he has come to discover warfare everywhere at
every time. 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.
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