1st Edition

Peace and War Cross-cultural Perspectives

By Mary LeCron Foster Copyright 1986
388 Pages
by Routledge

388 Pages
by Routledge

388 Pages
by Routledge

Is war necessary? In Peace and War prominent anthropologists and other social scientists explore the cultural and social factors leading to war. They analyze the covert causes of war from a cross-cultural perspective: ideologies that dispose people to war; underlying patterns of social relationships that help institutionalize war; and the cultural systems of military establishments. Overt... Read more
Acknowledgments Preface Introduction Part I The Individual, Community, and Conflict 1. Personal Motivation and Institutionalized Conflict 2. The Uses of Fear: Porro Gangs in Mexico 3. Toward a Structural Model of Violence: Male Initiation Rituals and Tribal Warfare 4. Fighting for Peace 5. The Culture of United States Military Enclaves 6. Is War Necessary? 7. The Cultural Patterning of Risk-Seeking Behavior: Implications for Armed Conflict Part II The Dynamics of Conflict 8. Land Disputes and the Gods in the Prehispanic Mixteca 9. Directed Change and the Hope for Peace 10. Ethnic Targeting as a Defense Strategy 11. Conflict in the Horn of Africa 12. Christianity and War Part III Social Scientists React 13. Sociopsychological Aspects of the Prevention of Nuclear War 14. The Drift to War 15. The War-Making Institutions 16. The Nature of War and the American Military Profession 17. War and Peace: The View of a Soviet Scholar Part IV Conflict and the Nation-State 18. Ideology and Institutions in Peace and War 19. War and War Proneness in Pre- and Postindustrial States 20. The Developmental Dynamics of Peace 21. The Anthropology of Global Integration: Some Grounds for Optimism about World Peace 22. The Superpowers and the Tribes Part V Anthropology and Policy 23. Anthropology for the Second Stage of the Nuclear Age 24. Anthropology as a Nonpolicy Science 25. Global Policy and Revolution in Social Sciences 26. Conflict and Belief in American Foreign Policy 27. The Collapse of Strategy: Understanding Ideological Bias in Policy Decisions Conclusion: Toward an Anthropology of Peace and War About the Contributors

Biography

Mary LeCron Foster is research associate in the Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley.