Man and aggression

by Ashley Montagu

The comparatively new science of ethology, or the study of the behavior of different species, has given rise to a number of hypotheses about manʹs instinctual nature. A conception of manʹs inborn aggressive drive -- a twentieth-century form of neo Ssocial Darwinism advanced by the eminent ethologist Konrad Lorenz, and popularized in books by Robert Ardrey -- has recently gained a wider acceptance than scientific objectivity can support. In this volume, edited by a distinguished anthropology and social biologist, fourteen experts offer a critique of this Hobbesian view of man, which is related to and possibly older than the doctrine of original sin. In the editorʹs words, their purpose is to put the record straight, to correct what threatens to become an epidemic error concerning the causes of manʹs aggression, and to redirect attention to a consideration of the real causes of such behavior. -- Back cover.