I gather it was a trendy view in certain sectors of academia for some time, and possibly in parts of pop culture. In about '04 or '05 one of my poli sci classe

I gather it was a trendy view in certain sectors of academia for some time, and possibly in parts of pop culture. In about '04 or '05 one of my poli sci classes assigned War Before Civilization: the Myth of the Peaceful Savage (OUP, 1996, Keeley) and the professor spent much time debunking the notion of the peaceful savage or a time before war, but already then, almost two decades ago, it seemed like a weird thing to focus on because none of the students were aware this was a myth that needed debunking because we hadn't encountered it until that class. I assume it seemed important to the professor because some little academic war (ha, ha) over the issue had wrapped up in the recent past.