Beyond War The Human Potential for Peace [Paperback]

A profoundly heartening view of human nature,Beyond Waroffers a hopeful prognosis for a future without war. Douglas P. Fry convincingly argues that our ancient ancestors were not innately warlike--and neither are we. He points out that, for perhaps ninety-nine percent of our history, for well over a million years, humans lived in nomadic hunter-and-gatherer groups, egalitarian bands where warfare was a rarity. Drawing on archaeology and fascinating recent fieldwork on hunter-gatherer bands from around the world, Fry debunks the idea that war is ancient and inevitable. For instance, among Aboriginal Australians, warfare was an extreme anomaly. Fry also points out that even today, when war seems ever present, the vast majority of us live peaceful, nonviolent lives. We are not as warlike as we think, and if we can learn from our ancestors, we may be able to move beyond war to provide real justice and security for the world.

Foreword,Robert M. Sapolsky
Preface
Acknowledgments
1. Charting a New Direction
2. Do Nonwarring Societies Actually Exist?
3. Overlooked and Underappreciated: The Human Potential for Peace
4. Killer Apes, Cannibals, and Coprolites: Projecting Mayhem onto the Past
5. The Earliest Evidence of War
6. War and Social Organization: From Nomadic Bands to Modern States
7. Seeking Justice: The Quest for Fairness
8. Man the Warrior: Fact or Fantasy?
9. Insights from the Outback: Geneva Conventions in the Australian Bush
10. Void if Detached...from Reality: Australian Warriors, Yonomam? Unokais, and Lethal Raiding Psychology
11. Returning to the Evidence: Life in the Band
12. Darwin Got It Right: Sex Differences in Aggression
13. A New Evolutionary Perspective: The Nomadic Forager Model
14. Setting the Record Straight
15. A Macroscopic Anthropological View
16. Enhancing Peace
Appendix 1: Organizations to Contact
Appendix 2: Nonwarring Societies
Notes
Suggested Reading