R Brian Ferguson
Biographic Data
| ID | 3584540 |
|---|---|
| NAME | R Brian Ferguson |
| GIVEN NAMES | R Brian |
| FAMILY NAME | Ferguson |
| SIGNATURE | FERGUSON R B |
| AFFILIATIONS | Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 39 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 480 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 38 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1938 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Chimpanzees, War, and History: Are Men Born to Kill?
Why do people make war? Why is war so common? Is it human nature for men to kill outsiders? Many say yes, and claim this is shown by a supposedly confirmed innate tendency of chimpanzees to kill outsiders. Chimpanzees, War and History challenges that consensus, with detailed contextual evidence showing how human disturbance leads directly to bloodshed, and can intensify status conflicts up to deadly display and payback violence. The contrast of p…
Why War? From the Pleistocene to the Present: An Anthropological Perspective
Editorial and opinion pieces speculate (or proclaim) about the foundations of war, the curse of humanity. Here is another perspective, backed by forty years of anthropological research, on origins, causes, variations, and meanings of war, and their contemporary implications
War, Technology, Anthropology
Technologies of the allied warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan, such as remote-controlled drones and night vision goggles, allow the user to “virtualize” human targets. This coincides with increased civilian casualties and a perpetuation of the very insecurity these technologies are meant to combat. This concise volume of research and reflections from different regions across Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa, observes how anthropology…
Masculinity and War
Why is war so closely associated with men? Is it an expression of male nature or a product of culture? This survey of masculinity and war considers the proposition that men are predisposed to kill male outsiders, which led to war throughout our species' evolutionary history and selected for additional gender characteristics. Claimed support from study of chimpanzees, archaeology, and mobile foragers is challenged, supporting the conclusion that w…
War and the Sexes in Amazonia
The chapter reviews existing theory on the relation of social structural patterns to war, and considers these posited relationships against Amazonian cases. It argues that production and conflict patterns together determine post-marital residence patterns. The chapter proposes that residence, production, and conflict combine to influence the significance in war of men fighting over women. Conflict patterns of native Amazonians have special signif…
History, explanation, and war among the Yanomami: A response to Chagnon’s Noble Savages
Why do people make war? Is it in human nature? Publication of Napoleon Chagnon’s Noble Savages resurrects old arguments, largely displaced in recent times by study of larger scale political violence, and sidelined by more contemporary theoretical currents. This shift ceded the human nature issue to a variety of biologistic approaches, for which Chagnon’s image of the Orinoco-Mavaca Yanomamo is foundational. Chagnon proposes that war is driven by …
Violence Against Women in the La Plata River Valley (A.D. 1000-1300)
Scalp marks stand out as particularly clear evidence of war. As Ostendorf Smith demonstrates, scalping was practiced in North America from ancient times, although much less extensively than after Europeans began paying bounties for them. Skeletal trauma may come from sources as diverse as subsistence activities, spousal abuse, sports, internal coercion, ritual sacrifice and of course war. Weapons constitute another set of evidence. Pacific Northw…
Full Spectrum: The Military Invasion of Anthropology
Neil Lancelot Whitehead (1956-2012)
Neil Lancelot Whitehead, an ethnohistorian of lowland South America who was a professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, died on March 22, 2012, in Madison. He was born in London on March 19, 1956, to Kenneth and Irene Whitehead and was raised with his younger sister Kim in the north London borough Harrow. Their father was a child of empire. Born in India to a father from Portuguese Goa and an Indian mother, Ken founded a …
Cultures in Chaos: An Anthropology of the Social Condition in War by Stephen Lubkemann
RestudyingCañamelarofThe People of Puerto Rico
This article discusses an unknown restudy of one locale of the People of Puerto Rico Project–my own. From 1980 to 1982 the author did ethnographic fieldwork in Bo. Jauca, Santa Isabel, the research site of Sidney Mintz. Building on Mintz's work, my goal was to take our shared historical materialism further, into a broader analysis of capitalism, colonialism, class, politics, and power. Where Mintz framed his study within production units, such as…
The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War
Eight Points of War
Violence in War and Peace: An Anthology
An alternative anthropology: exercising the preferential option of the poor / Leigh Binford
The State, Identity and Violence: Political Disintegration in the Post-Cold War World
Transforming Academia: Challenges and Opportunities for an Engaged Anthropology
Transforming Academia: Challenges and Opportunities for an Engaged Anthropology. Linda G. Basch. Lucie Wood Saunders. Jagna Wojcicka Sharff. and James Peacock. eds. Arlington, VA: American Anthropological Association, 1999. 307 pp
Materialist, cultural and biological theories on why Yanomami make war
For decades, there have been three primary anthropological perspectives on why people make war: materialist, cultural, and biological. Each has a long history of application to the Yanomami. This paper considers these three alternatives. First, it summarizes the author's materialist models and what they are purported to explain. Second, it discusses more cultural explanations offered by several field researchers, concluding that some might be syn…
The Dark Side of Man: Tracing the Origins of Male Violence
The Dark Side of Man: Tracing the Origins of Male Violence. Michael P. Ghiglieri. Reading, MA: Perseus Books, 1999. 323 pp
"The Causes and Origins of "Primitive Warfare: On Evolved Motivations for War
Azar Gat's argument represents a major advance toward realism in neo-Darwinian theory on war. Consistently reasonable, plausible, with substantial evidence (on some points), his basic argument is that a wide range of reasons for war are all part of an integrated motivational complex, evolved to deal with problems of survival and reproduction in our species past. Some, clashes of material (somatic) or reproductive interests, are root causes of con…
War in the tribal zone: Expanding States and Indigenous Warfare
Perilous Positions
Yanomami Warfare: A Political History
War before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage
War before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage. Lawrence Keeley. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. 246 pp
Yanomami Warfane: A Political History
(Mis)understanding Resource Scarcity and Cultural Difference
Violence in War and Peace: An Anthology
An alternative anthropology: exercising the preferential option of the poor / Leigh Binford
Warfare, culture, and environment
Blood of the Leviathan: Western contact and warfare in Amazonia
This article argues that reported wars among Native peoples of Amazonia are not representative of pre-Columbian warfare. The well-known cases that are the bases for our conceptions of Amazonian warfare, as well as dozens of less prominent instances of war, can be attributed largely to circumstances created by the European intrusion. The broader implication is that anthropological theory and teaching about war are distorted by an unexamined premis…
War in the tribal zone: Expanding States and Indigenous Warfare
Materialist, cultural and biological theories on why Yanomami make war
For decades, there have been three primary anthropological perspectives on why people make war: materialist, cultural, and biological. Each has a long history of application to the Yanomami. This paper considers these three alternatives. First, it summarizes the author's materialist models and what they are purported to explain. Second, it discusses more cultural explanations offered by several field researchers, concluding that some might be syn…
Masculinity and War
Why is war so closely associated with men? Is it an expression of male nature or a product of culture? This survey of masculinity and war considers the proposition that men are predisposed to kill male outsiders, which led to war throughout our species' evolutionary history and selected for additional gender characteristics. Claimed support from study of chimpanzees, archaeology, and mobile foragers is challenged, supporting the conclusion that w…
The Anthropology of War: A Bibliography
War in the Tribal Zone: Expanding States and Indigenous Warfare
War before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage
War before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage. Lawrence Keeley. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. 246 pp
Yanomami Warfare: A Political History
"The Causes and Origins of "Primitive Warfare: On Evolved Motivations for War
Azar Gat's argument represents a major advance toward realism in neo-Darwinian theory on war. Consistently reasonable, plausible, with substantial evidence (on some points), his basic argument is that a wide range of reasons for war are all part of an integrated motivational complex, evolved to deal with problems of survival and reproduction in our species past. Some, clashes of material (somatic) or reproductive interests, are root causes of con…
Game Wars? Ecology and Conflict in Amazonia
This paper suggests a resolution of the long-standing controversy concerning game scarcity and warfare in Amazonia. The "protein hypothesis" is evaluated against extensive, mostly recent, literature on relationships between individuals, society, and nature. The findings indicate that those who say game scarcity does explain war and those who say it does not are both correct, but in different senses of "explanation." Game is found to be a nutritio…
Ecological Consequences of Amazonian Warfare
History, explanation, and war among the Yanomami: A response to Chagnon’s Noble Savages
Why do people make war? Is it in human nature? Publication of Napoleon Chagnon’s Noble Savages resurrects old arguments, largely displaced in recent times by study of larger scale political violence, and sidelined by more contemporary theoretical currents. This shift ceded the human nature issue to a variety of biologistic approaches, for which Chagnon’s image of the Orinoco-Mavaca Yanomamo is foundational. Chagnon proposes that war is driven by …
Violence Against Women in the La Plata River Valley (A.D. 1000-1300)
Scalp marks stand out as particularly clear evidence of war. As Ostendorf Smith demonstrates, scalping was practiced in North America from ancient times, although much less extensively than after Europeans began paying bounties for them. Skeletal trauma may come from sources as diverse as subsistence activities, spousal abuse, sports, internal coercion, ritual sacrifice and of course war. Weapons constitute another set of evidence. Pacific Northw…
RestudyingCañamelarofThe People of Puerto Rico
This article discusses an unknown restudy of one locale of the People of Puerto Rico Project–my own. From 1980 to 1982 the author did ethnographic fieldwork in Bo. Jauca, Santa Isabel, the research site of Sidney Mintz. Building on Mintz's work, my goal was to take our shared historical materialism further, into a broader analysis of capitalism, colonialism, class, politics, and power. Where Mintz framed his study within production units, such as…
Eight Points of War
Transforming Academia: Challenges and Opportunities for an Engaged Anthropology
Transforming Academia: Challenges and Opportunities for an Engaged Anthropology. Linda G. Basch. Lucie Wood Saunders. Jagna Wojcicka Sharff. and James Peacock. eds. Arlington, VA: American Anthropological Association, 1999. 307 pp
Perilous Positions
War in the Tribal Zone: Expanding States and Indigenous Warfare
Arctic Harpooner: A Voyage on the Schooner Abbie Bradford, 1878-1879
War, Technology, Anthropology
Technologies of the allied warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan, such as remote-controlled drones and night vision goggles, allow the user to “virtualize” human targets. This coincides with increased civilian casualties and a perpetuation of the very insecurity these technologies are meant to combat. This concise volume of research and reflections from different regions across Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa, observes how anthropology…
Neil Lancelot Whitehead (1956-2012)
Neil Lancelot Whitehead, an ethnohistorian of lowland South America who was a professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, died on March 22, 2012, in Madison. He was born in London on March 19, 1956, to Kenneth and Irene Whitehead and was raised with his younger sister Kim in the north London borough Harrow. Their father was a child of empire. Born in India to a father from Portuguese Goa and an Indian mother, Ken founded a …
The Dark Side of Man: Tracing the Origins of Male Violence
The Dark Side of Man: Tracing the Origins of Male Violence. Michael P. Ghiglieri. Reading, MA: Perseus Books, 1999. 323 pp
Yanomami Warfane: A Political History
Arctic Harpooner: A Voyage on the Schooner Abbie Bradford, 1878-1879
Arctic Harpooner: A Voyage on the Schooner Abbie Bradford 1878-1879
Legal Ideology and Commercial Interests: The Social Origins of the Commercial Law Codes
The Sociological Movement in Law
The Adjudication of Commercial Disputes and the Legal System in Modern England
Warfare, culture, and environment
Peace and War: Cross‐Cultural Perspectives . Mary LeCron Foster and Robert A. Rubinstein , eds
Game Wars? Ecology and Conflict in Amazonia
This paper suggests a resolution of the long-standing controversy concerning game scarcity and warfare in Amazonia. The "protein hypothesis" is evaluated against extensive, mostly recent, literature on relationships between individuals, society, and nature. The findings indicate that those who say game scarcity does explain war and those who say it does not are both correct, but in different senses of "explanation." Game is found to be a nutritio…
Ecological Consequences of Amazonian Warfare
The Anthropology of War: A Bibliography
Aztec Warfare: Imperial Expansion and Political Control. Ross Hassig
Blood of the Leviathan: Western contact and warfare in Amazonia
This article argues that reported wars among Native peoples of Amazonia are not representative of pre-Columbian warfare. The well-known cases that are the bases for our conceptions of Amazonian warfare, as well as dozens of less prominent instances of war, can be attributed largely to circumstances created by the European intrusion. The broader implication is that anthropological theory and teaching about war are distorted by an unexamined premis…
War in the Tribal Zone: Expanding States and Indigenous Warfare
War in the Tribal Zone: Expanding States and Indigenous Warfare
(Mis)understanding Resource Scarcity and Cultural Difference
Yanomami Warfane: A Political History
Yanomami Warfare: A Political History
War before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage
War before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage. Lawrence Keeley. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. 246 pp
War in the tribal zone: Expanding States and Indigenous Warfare
Perilous Positions
The Dark Side of Man: Tracing the Origins of Male Violence
The Dark Side of Man: Tracing the Origins of Male Violence. Michael P. Ghiglieri. Reading, MA: Perseus Books, 1999. 323 pp
"The Causes and Origins of "Primitive Warfare: On Evolved Motivations for War
Azar Gat's argument represents a major advance toward realism in neo-Darwinian theory on war. Consistently reasonable, plausible, with substantial evidence (on some points), his basic argument is that a wide range of reasons for war are all part of an integrated motivational complex, evolved to deal with problems of survival and reproduction in our species past. Some, clashes of material (somatic) or reproductive interests, are root causes of con…
Materialist, cultural and biological theories on why Yanomami make war
For decades, there have been three primary anthropological perspectives on why people make war: materialist, cultural, and biological. Each has a long history of application to the Yanomami. This paper considers these three alternatives. First, it summarizes the author's materialist models and what they are purported to explain. Second, it discusses more cultural explanations offered by several field researchers, concluding that some might be syn…
Violence in War and Peace: An Anthology
An alternative anthropology: exercising the preferential option of the poor / Leigh Binford
The State, Identity and Violence: Political Disintegration in the Post-Cold War World
Sociology (20 works) · History (17 works) · History (15 works) · Political science (14 works) · Anthropology (10 works) · Anthropology: Ethics, History, Culture (10 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Geography (7 works) · Library science (6 works)