McSweeney's
November 2011
On Sale: November 8, 2011
224 pages ISBN: 1936365367 EAN: 9781936365364 Kindle: B007NLCM2I Hardcover / e-Book Add to Wish List
War is a fact of human nature. As long as we exist, it exists. That's how the argument goes.
But longtime Scientific American writer John Horgan disagrees. Applying the scientific method to war leads Horgan to a radical conclusion: biologically speaking, we are just as likely to be peaceful as violent. War is not preordained, and furthermore, it should be thought of as a solvable, scientific problemβlike curing cancer. But war and cancer differ in at least one crucial way: whereas cancer is a stubborn aspect of nature, war is our creation. Itβs our choice whether to unmake it or not.
In this compact, methodical treatise, Horgan examines dozens of examples and counterexamplesβdiscussing chimpanzees and bonobos, warring and peaceful indigenous people, the World War I and Vietnam, Margaret Mead and General Shermanβas he finds his way to warβs complicated origins. Horgan argues for a far-reaching paradigm shift with profound implications for policy students, ethicists, military men and women, teachers, philosophers, or really, any engaged citizen.
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