The most dangerous animal : human nature and the origins of war / David Livingstone Smith.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Smith, David Livingstone, 1953-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

War.

Physical Description:

xviii, 263 pages ; 22 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : St. Martin's Press, 2007.

Summary:

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 - 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.

Contents:

1 A Bad-Taste Business 1

2 Einstein's Question 31

3 Our Own Worst Enemy 40

4 The Origins of Human Nature 60

5 Hamlet's Question 93

6 A Legacy of Lies 107

7 Moral Passions 129

8 Reluctant Killers 147

9 The Face of War 161

10 Predators, Prey, and Parasites 183

11 Humanity Lost and Found 212

Appendix A Partial List of Democides Committed During the Past 100 Years 217.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-254) and index.

ISBN:

9780312341893

031234189X

OCLC:

123232321

Online:

Publisher description

Contributor biographical information