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For a narrower but deeper treatment of violence (and war) alone, Pinker's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature https://en.wikipedia.org

by wodow 3y ago

For a narrower but deeper treatment of violence (and war) alone, Pinker's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Natur... is well worth a read.

k0stas 3y ago
While it's appealing to believe Pinker, his treatment of statistics and probability of war has been debunked. For a mathematical analysis of the history of war see Cirillo and Taleb's paper "On the statistical properties and tail risk of violent conflict" (https://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/violence.pdf https://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/violence.pdf). From the paper: "Accordingly, the public intellectual arena has witnessed active debates, such as the one between Steven Pinker on one side, and John Gray on the other concerning the hypothesis that the long peace was a statistically established phenomenon or a mere statistical sampling error that is characteristic of heavy-tailed processes, 16] and [27]–the latter of which is corroborated by this paper."
- patcon 3y ago
  Unsure, but maybe related to newer considerations/nuance: Scaling theory of armed-conflict avalanches https://www.santafe.edu/news-center/news/avalanche-violence-new-analysis-reveals-predictable-patterns-armed-conflicts https://www.santafe.edu/news-center/news/avalanche-violence-... Podcast: https://complexity.simplecast.com/episodes/39-9ugXDtkC https://complexity.simplecast.com/episodes/39-9ugXDtkC
mcmoor 3y ago
The only thing I know about the book is from this article https://acoup.blog/2021/10/15/fireside-friday-october-15-2021/ https://acoup.blog/2021/10/15/fireside-friday-october-15-202... which recommends Azar Gat, War in Human Civilization instead.
brnaftr361 3y ago
Skeptically. Pinker has been called out for cherry picking by numerous other authors, and particularly Graeber/Wengrow who are a duo of academic anthropologist and archaeologist respectively. Another is Christopher Ryan. In both cases well reasoned counterarguments are poised against Pinker's reasoning.

by wodow 3y ago

k0stas 3y ago

While it's appealing to believe Pinker, his treatment of statistics and probability of war has been debunked. For a mathematical analysis of the history of war see Cirillo and Taleb's paper "On the statistical properties and tail risk of violent conflict" (https://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/violence.pdf https://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/violence.pdf). From the paper: "Accordingly, the public intellectual arena has witnessed active debates, such as the one between Steven Pinker on one side, and John Gray on the other concerning the hypothesis that the long peace was a statistically established phenomenon or a mere statistical sampling error that is characteristic of heavy-tailed processes, 16] and [27]–the latter of which is corroborated by this paper."

patcon 3y ago
Unsure, but maybe related to newer considerations/nuance: Scaling theory of armed-conflict avalanches https://www.santafe.edu/news-center/news/avalanche-violence-new-analysis-reveals-predictable-patterns-armed-conflicts https://www.santafe.edu/news-center/news/avalanche-violence-... Podcast: https://complexity.simplecast.com/episodes/39-9ugXDtkC https://complexity.simplecast.com/episodes/39-9ugXDtkC

mcmoor 3y ago

The only thing I know about the book is from this article https://acoup.blog/2021/10/15/fireside-friday-october-15-2021/ https://acoup.blog/2021/10/15/fireside-friday-october-15-202... which recommends Azar Gat, War in Human Civilization instead.

brnaftr361 3y ago

Skeptically. Pinker has been called out for cherry picking by numerous other authors, and particularly Graeber/Wengrow who are a duo of academic anthropologist and archaeologist respectively. Another is Christopher Ryan. In both cases well reasoned counterarguments are poised against Pinker's reasoning.