Blood Rites : Origins and History of the Passions of War

Rating:
Summary: This book has to be a joke.
Review: The author doesn't inform, or define or back up her opinions at all in this "book". She just makes wild claims, spins already twisted facts and rants.

Rating:
Summary: A refreshing view of war using modern analytics
Review: This book spends much of its time in review of behaviors and expressions of war. If there is any fault in the book, it is that too much effort is devoted to rehashing these. Of course this is based of my own desire to read more of the meme theory she puts forward - certainly the book title sets the expectation correctly. So much has been written on the passions and origins of war, known to anyone who has studied either war and/or military history. I was very impressed with the fresh perspective of the meme approach. Although Meme theory is in its early development, the author boldly approaches the most modern evolutional theories of war (which i myself was firmly entrenched in), guiding the reader to a logical conclusion that war itself is a meme which we do not fully understand yet. She has definitely convinced me to impose more up-to-date scientific analysis using modern anlytics such as memes, pattern theory, etc.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but not outstanding
Review: This is not as good a book as it should be. The subject is fascinating and important: what causes human beings to war against each other? The author answers this question by tracing the history of war as a religious experience growing out of the human evolutionary experience of being prey for more talented predators: cat food, one astute reviewer called us. Human beings, she says, are haunted by the "ghosts of predators past." The enemy of humans is "the beast" and, as societies grow in complexity, the "beast" becomes humans from another culture or country rather than predatory animals. She then takes this genetic memory of man as cat food and projects it forward to an examination of human and animal sacrifice as rituals in the early history of all religions

The second one-half of the book is a history of war, especially war as a "culture shaping force" using, among others, Japan, Nazi Germany, and the United States as examples. Much of the last pages of the book are a gloss on William James' 1906 essay "The Moral Equivalent of War." I recommend that you read the essay to get the essence of Ehrenreich's argument in a more elegantly written and concise form.

"Blood Rites" is worth reading as an introduction to the subject of war. The author has some interesting insights, with thought-provoking food for thought and tantalizing details in her mini-history of war. However, her analysis and the evidence she presents is thin, and she really doesn't persuade effectively. All in all, I won't give this book top ranking because the author , although competent, doesn't demonstrate any truly deep or insightful knowledge about her subject.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but not outstanding
Review: This is not as good a book as it should be. The subject is fascinating and important: what causes human beings to war against each other? The author answers this question by tracing the history of war as a religious experience growing out of the human evolutionary experience of being prey for more talented predators: cat food, one astute reviewer called us. Human beings, she says, are haunted by the "ghosts of predators past." The enemy of humans is "the beast" and, as societies grow in complexity, the "beast" becomes humans from another culture or country rather than predatory animals. She then takes this genetic memory of man as cat food and projects it forward to an examination of human and animal sacrifice as rituals in the early history of all religions

The second one-half of the book is a history of war, especially war as a "culture shaping force" using, among others, Japan, Nazi Germany, and the United States as examples. Much of the last pages of the book are a gloss on William James' 1906 essay "The Moral Equivalent of War." I recommend that you read the essay to get the essence of Ehrenreich's argument in a more elegantly written and concise form.

"Blood Rites" is worth reading as an introduction to the subject of war. The author has some interesting insights, with thought-provoking food for thought and tantalizing details in her mini-history of war. However, her analysis and the evidence she presents is thin, and she really doesn't persuade effectively. All in all, I won't give this book top ranking because the author , although competent, doesn't demonstrate any truly deep or insightful knowledge about her subject.