Blood Rites, Barbara Ehrenreich
Blood Rites, Barbara Ehrenreich
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Blood Rites
Origins and History of the Passions of War

Author: Barbara Ehrenreich

Narrator: Amy Landon

Unabridged: 9 hr 56 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Twelve

Published: 01/07/2020


Synopsis

A New York Times Notable BookAn ALA Notable Book
"Original and illuminating." --The Washington Post
What draws our species to war? What makes us see violence as a kind of sacred duty, or a ritual that boys must undergo to "become" men? Newly reissued in paperback, Blood Rites takes readers on an original journey from the elaborate human sacrifices of the ancient world to the carnage and holocaust of twentieth-century "total war."
Ehrenreich sifts deftly through the fragile records of prehistory and discovers the wellspring of war in an unexpected place -- not in a "killer instinct" unique to the males of our species, but in the blood rites early humans performed to reenact their terrifying experiences of predation by stronger carnivores.
Brilliant in conception and rich in scope, Blood Rites is a monumental work that continues to transform our understanding of the greatest single threat to human life.

Author Bio

Barbara Ehrenreich is author of the 2002 New York Times bestseller Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. She has written nearly twenty books, and has been a columnist for Time magazine and the New York Times. She has contributed to The Progressive, Harpers, The Atlantic Monthly, Ms., The New Republic, Z Magazine, In These Times, and salon.com.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Larry

Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War covers the development of war from the prehistoric people who were at first the prey of larger animals and to the early 1990s when some thought that war had become outmoded with the advent of nuclear weapons so horribly destructive that we woul......more

Goodreads review by Reid

It is a major feat to make war boring. Ehrenreich is attempting here (or so it seems) to walk the thin line between academic rigor and readability; she has not succeeded in the latter, and, as a self-described amateur, she undoubtedly has also fallen shot of the former. It's a shame, really. Ehrenrei......more

Goodreads review by Monika

Potencjalne powody, dla których ludzkość prowadzi wojny od tysiącleci. Poparte wieloma mitami, opowieściami i wyobrażeniami uwiecznionymi w kulturach wielu cywilizacji. Z książki wynika, że kiedy już staliśmy się drapieżcami i łowcami, a duże zwierzęta zaczęły w mezolicie wymierać, to gatunek ludzki......more