The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War
by David Livingstone Smith
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Description
Almost 200 million human beings, mostly civilians, have died in wars over the last century, and there is no end of slaughter in sight. The Most Dangerous Animal asks what it is about human nature that makes it possible for human beings to regularly slaughter their own kind. It tells the story of why all human beings have the potential to be hideously cruel and destructive to one another. Why are we our own worst enemy? The book shows us that war has been with us - in one form or another - show more since prehistoric times, and looking at the behavior of our close relatives, the chimpanzees, it argues that a penchant for group violence has been bred into us over millions of years of biological evolution. The Most Dangerous Animal takes the reader on a journey through evolution, history, anthropology, and psychology, showing how and why the human mind has a dual nature: on the one hand, we are ferocious, dangerous animals who regularly commit terrible atrocities against our own kind, on the other, we have a deep aversion to killing, a horror of taking human life. Meticulously researched and far-reaching in scope and with examples taken from ancient and modern history, The Most Dangerous Animal delivers a sobering lesson for an increasingly dangerous world. Also includes information on nonhuman aggression, American Civil War, cruelty toward animals, Bible, bonobos, brain, chimpanzees, Christianity, war as cleansing, Charles Darwin, Egypt, face, France, Sigmund Freud, genocide, Germany, Greece, Adolf Hitler, David Hume, hunting, Islam, Japan, Jews and Judaism, killing at a distance, Mesopotamia, mind-body problem, Native Americans, Nazis, Plato, psychiatric casualties (post traumatic stress disorder), religion, Rwanda, sex, slavery, Soviet Union, Mark Twain, United Kingdom, United States, Vietnam War, women, World War I, World War II, Yanomammi (people), etc. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
An interesting and informative treatise on why humans have an innate, biological & evolutionary propensity to wage war despite having such a strong aversion to killing.
This book over-promises and under-delivers on its premise: to analyze how human nature leads to war. However, it does provide a very light overview of the subject and therefore offers an entry-point to readers who have not thought about man's inherent aggressiveness and its implications.
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Author Information
10+ Works 568 Members
David Livingstone Smith, Ph.D., is currently a professor of philosophy and co-founder and director of the Institute for Cognitive Science and Evolutionary Psychology at the University of New England. He has published widely in the areas of deception and self-deception. A longtime professor in London, he now lives in Scarborough, Maine
Classifications
- Genres
- Anthropology, Nonfiction, Science & Nature, General Nonfiction, History, Philosophy
- DDC/MDS
- 355.02 — Society, government, & culture Public administration & military science The Military - Land, Air & Sea / Warfare War
- LCC
- U21 .S617 — Military Science Military science (General) War. Philosophy. Military sociology
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 114
- Popularity
- 284,504
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.88)
- Languages
- English, Polish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 4
- ASINs
- 4
