War

Azar Gat war in civilization

• 03/12/21 19:03:52 Liking this book so far. The main things I take from the first part:
  • Evolutionary theory forms the basis of Gat’s thinking on all motivations for conflict. Every motivation or end cause can be derived from some evolutionary need. p 144
  • Most casualties of conflict in primitive tribes were from ambushes hand to hand open field combat. Humans are one of the few animals where mutual deterrence does not come into play. This is due to tool making where weapons are not the body itself, like most animals, p.128. Also, there is no out right attacker all the time, tribes, through ambush are always on equal footing.
  • I liked the idea of economic growth, that is an increase in productive capacities, as an expansion of the resource frontier. Ultimately in a Malthusian sense being swarmed by new people but still increasing crop yields or the amount of land you have or the more aerodynamic spear all increase production (in this case, food) and hence, consumption. “Pushing against the resource walls of your environment”
  • p.136

    • The persistence and shift of evolution-shaped behaviours in radical altered cultural settings is at the core of human historical development

  • p.89

    • When no strong centralized authority existed, one’s honour was a social commodity of vital significance, affecting both somatic and reproductive chances

  • It’s interesting to think about how long we lived as a species without the radical changes we have today. A large part of our genetic make up is geared towards those environments and conditions. One point mentioned was that evolution speeds up, I wonder if this applies to us now, how fast will we adapt to our new conditions. Are we already adapting genetically?
• 06/07/22 09:29:04 Just finished up Chapter 11. The main thing in my head from the last few chapters is the general structure of military in the ‘emergence of the state’ particularly with feudalism and semi-feudalism. How vassals were a money saver and more useful in less bureaucratic states like those in Europe but not as common in places like China which had more institutions around this time (I think)
  • There is points about the geography of Europe contributing to it’s warfare orientated nature at the end of the chapter. That the less open plain contributed to more secluded tribes and peoples and infantry as being more useful for tackling this terrain in warfare. It’s hard with these broad sweeping comparisons as most of the information I’m taking for granted.
• 18/07/22 18:46:22 Finished Chapter 12, pretty interesting conclusion chapter
  • It starts with coercion in the state structure as being emergent with growth. That small scale dynamics just evolves with more people. There’s also fairly absurd sentences like: “kin solidarity-were neither wholly ‘invented’ nor entirely superseded by the political power structures imposed on them”
  • I really found the evolution of religion from the kind of need to know our surroundings interesting.
  • The book is fairly rambling though, it’s hard to know what the general question being answered in each chapter is. And at the end of this one it goes on a tangent about ascetism’s contribution to war, I just don’t understand what coercive power in the state, to formation of religion expounded on evolutionary need and asceticism to war have to with each other.
  • Really just taking about 10 pages at a time at this stage
  • Also, the idea of proximate mechanisms is very powerful in my opinion, as a label on emergent behaviours from evolutionary needs