Man and aggression. Contributors: S. A. Barnett [and others]

Includes tables, bibliographies.

The new litany of "innate depravity", or Original sin revisited / Ashley Montagu -- Man and beast / Morton Hunt -- Simple views of aggression / Leonard Berkowitz -- The human nature of human nature / Leon Eisenberg -- From Ardrey to altruism: a discourse on the biological basis of human behavior / Peter H. Klopfer -- On the hazards of analogies / S.A. Barnet -- Man's nature, and social institutions / René Dubos -- Human behavior: aggression / Hermann Helmuth -- An idea we could live without: the naked ape / David Pilbeam -- War is not in our genes / Sally Carrighar -- That old-time aggression / J.P. Scott -- Instinct and aggression / T.C. Schneirla -- Don't say "boo" to a goose / Edmund Leach -- Ardrey on human nature: animals, nations, imperatives / Geoffrey Gorer -- Am I a man or a mouse--or both? / Kenneth E. Boulding -- Territory and aggression in man: a look at Ardrey's Territorial imperative / Ralph Holloway -- The nature and function of territorial aggression / John Hurrell Crook -- Lorenz/Margolin on the Ute / Omer C. Stewart -- Cannibalism in paleoanthropology and ethnology / Hermann Helmuth -- African nemesis: an Off-Broadway review / Marshall D. Sahlins.

Man and Aggression was first published in 1968 as a direct challenge to the concept of man's instinctual "aggressive drive"--a concept advanced in the newly developing science of ethology (the study of the behavior of different species) by the eminent ethologist Konrad Lorenz, and popularized in books by Robert Ardrey. The appearance of subsequent critiques of the Lorenz thesis led the editor to enlarge and revise his original collection. This second edition contains eight additional essays, strengthening the book's sustained and reasoned criticism of the still fashionable contention that ethologists can understand human behavior by observing that of lower animals. The nineteen authorities represented in this volume offer a fine dissection of this Hobbesian view of man. They note, among other phenomena, the proclivities of many kinds of mammals to live together harmoniously; they discuss the evidence for spontaneous aggression, and distinguish between defensive and predatory killing; they probe the possible cultural sources of human aggression. Also, included for the first time is an exploration of the ritual origin of cannibalism, and an examination of the writings of Desmond Morris and Anthony Storr. The book's purpose remains, in the words of the editor, "to put the record straight, to correct what threatens to become an epidemic error concerning the causes of man's aggression, and to redirect attention to a consideration of the real causes of such behavior."--Adapted from book jacket.