Enduring myth of 'noble savage' vs. a species at continuous war?

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CONSTANT BATTLES: THE MYTH OF THE PEACEFUL, NOBLE SAVAGE

By Steven A. LeBlanc, with Katherine E. Register

St. Martin's , $24.95, 271 pages. illus.

REVIEWED BY KEITH WINDSCHUTTLE

Prehistoric warfare is a topic that matters very much today because it has the ability to tell us a great deal about the human condition and even the human future. The nature and extent of warfare deep in our tribal past can help throw light on whether human beings are a fundamentally warlike or peaceful species. If the human condition has always been bound by warfare then a pessimism about the prospect of changing this and an investment in a heavily armed nation state would be the rational choice.

But if human nature is ultimately peaceable then it makes more sense to be optimistic, to believe all disputes can eventually be resolved nonviolently, and to work for an international order dedicated to negotiation and conciliation.

It is no secret that Western society is today radically divided by these assumptions, between Americans from Mars and Europeans from Venus. Moreover, most Western countries are themselves internally divided along similar lines, between pessimistic, hard-headed conservatives and optimistic, soft-hearted liberals.

Given the importance of the topic you would expect it to have attracted an enormous amount of debate among those who study prehistory. Yet Steven A. LeBlanc's new book "Constant Battles: The Myth of the Peaceful Noble Savage" is only the fifth major study of the issue to be published in English in the past 100 years. In fact, in all that time, Mr. LeBlanc is only the second author to unequivocally argue that, for most of its existence, homo sapiens has waged almost constant war on its own kind and that primeval society was far more warlike than any of its civilized successors.