THE DAWN WARRIORS: Man's Evolution Toward Peace

by Robert Bigelow ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 22, 1969

The dawn warriors"" are none other than our benighted ancestors fighting their way through the Pleistocene period and emerging with brains three times as large. Man's aggressiveness has gotten a lot of attention lately, but Bigelow (a teacher of zoology in New Zealand) constructs a whole theory of evolution based on the supposition that man's propensity for warfare was the selective force that demanded the threefold increase in the size of the brain in a mere 2 or 3 million years which made us the superior specimens we are. Since effective group action requires brains, communication, and coordination, and human history ""literally seethes with violent motion,"" the selective premium on intergroup cooperation was sky-high, and the rule of the jungle was survival of the smartest. If some of the wiliest warriors fell in battle, the loss was more than offset by the well-known genetic generosity of advancing armies. Thus communication and love are very closely related indeed to conflict and hatred. Man is at once the most cooperative and most ferocious of creatures, and the big question for the future is whether cooperation-for-conflict can become cooperation-for-survival, whether the Golden Rule will become global before the globe is a smoldering ruin. Bigelow touches upon socialized monkeys, population explosions, Genghis Khan, harems, Lebensraum, American Indians, and genetic drift in his attempt to bridge the gap between biology and culture. Engagingly polemical but not always persuasive.

Pub Date: Sept. 22, 1969

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little Brown-A.M.P.

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1969

Categories: NONFICTION