War Before Civilization

Keeley utterly demolishes the "golden age" idiotological mythos with hard anthropological, ethnographic and archaeological fact. He also, very cleverly to my mind, considering the biases of modern academics, gives "primitives" a great deal of credit for their fighting prowess. There were some flaws to his thesis, of course. But this is a sort of polemic; a bludgeon with which to beat home the unarguable fact that primitive man was a violent creature; not the Rousseauean "noble savage" of popular mythology. It also contains some great black humor, such as his recounting of a Maori chief taunting the preserved head of an enemy chief: " You wanted to run away, did you? But my war club overtook you: and after you were cooked, you made food for my mouth. And where is your father? he is cooked:- and where is your brother? he is eaten:- and where is your wife? there she sits, a wife for me:- and where are your children? there they are, with loads on their backs, carrying food, as my slaves." Humanity is ugly. The simple fact that we are unpleasant, violent apes seems to be lost on certain social classes of people. In my opinion, you can't begin to understand people without understanding that human beings are deeply flawed creatures. We are not made horrible by our social conditions, psychological trauma or any other such nonsense: humanity is just horrible. Any meaningful discussion of sociology, history or politics must start from these assumptions, or they are destructive folly.

This amazing little book ( 244 pgs. including footnotes and index.) should utterly change the way anthropologists view man's prehistory and the remaining prestate societies in the world. Keeley thoroughly and meticulously documents that prehistoric warfare was in fact far more frequent and deadly than modern warfare between state societies. Keeley shows that prestate warriors often more than not held their own in battles against civilized armies and often defeated them. Their ultimate defeats at the hands of state societies were often more attributable to introduced diseases and the logistical superiorty of modern economies than to military strategy and tactics. One particularly illuminating passage involves a New Guinean tribal leader who after seeing an airplane for the first time, asked for a ride and then permission to take along some heavy rocks. These rocks he wanted to drop on an enemy village!! He had understood within minutes the military significance of aircraft that had eluded many generals and admirals for a generation. Some of the passages in the book make for gruesome reading, particularly the sections on cannibalism, enemy torture, and civilian massacres. Most importantly, Keeley documents how anthropologists have in his words "pacified the past" out of a sense of guilt over imperialism and the two world wars of the 20th century. He shows numerous examples of anthropologists and archaeologists grasping at straws to explain away unambiguous evidence of warfare at numerous sites in North America and Europe. He even points out as a young archaeologist that he also engaged in a lot of similar wishful thinking. This book should be required reading in anthropology classes throughout the world, but sadly it will probably be ignored because it challenges too many entrenched beliefs.

Although extremely poorly edited, this slim volume represents a revolution in understanding early human history. The received wisdom in cultural ethnology is that true war was unknown to our species before the advent of so-called civilization. Not so; this book draws upon archeological and comparative ethnological data to show persuasively that bloody war has been a constant in human development up until the latter half of the twentieth century. Indeed, despite advancements in the technology of slaughter, and despite the cataclysmic events of the two world wars, on average the likelihood of death in battle has never, at any point in human evolution, been lower than during the current century.Much of the book is dedicated to an analysis of pre-civilization battle tactics (i.e., tribal tactics as observed during the modern period, ancient descriptions of tribal adversaries, inferences from the archeological record), and of their comparison with the methodologies of modern warfare. Keeley takes great pains to "defend" pre-civilization warfare as equally deadly and even "total" as any modern campaign. Overall, this is fine scholarship, and important reading for anyone seeking to understand human culture or the conditions of human evolution.

This is one of the more important books of recent years, persuasively dispelling the myth that non-technological societies possess an innocence and a devotion to peace that modern societies lack. Based on solid research, this book counters the popular contention that the introduction of Western values and customs tends to destroy the purported tranquility of primitive life. All students of history, particularly those inclined to view Western culture as inherently inferior to the cultures of Rousseau's "noble savages," ought to read this book. An outstanding work.

This is a very well written, researched book, with thoughtful analysis and down to earth reasoning. Anyone who might wonder if the world is getting better or worse...will find it is much better today. Read this book and encourage your friends to give it a look. I am waiting for the authors next work. Hurry up.