The Human Potential for Peace: An Anthropological Challenge to Assumptions about War and Violence
"The Human Potential for Peaceis a real achievement, the first systematic book of its kind, and a welcome part of the anthropological literature. I especially liked the sweep of the book, which broadly covers both the history of aggression as well as the ethnographic record, moving forward to contemporary society and applied implications."--Thomas A. Gregor, Professor of Anthropology,Vanderbilt University"This is an important book, and a serious one, although it is enlivened with a number of anecdotes and personal reminiscences. The book has great strengths, including breadth of scholarship in different areas, as well as a critical depth in tackling some common assumptions and cited conclusions."--Peter K. Smith, Department of Psychology,University College LondonRead the full review here."Amongst the various anthropological texts that have emerged over the last decade, this is clearly one of the most important. At a time when practitioners in the social sciences continue to haggle over the relative merits of interdisciplinary approaches, of paradigm shifts, and of the role of war and peace in human endeavors, this book strikes a relevant chord. Douglas Fry reminds us that in the human experience it is neither solely nature nor nurture, neither aggression nor camaraderie, rather it is a complex synthesis of human endeavors resulting in a clear and resounding potential for peace."--Agustín Fuentes, Department of Anthropology,University of Notre DameRead the full review here.