War Before Civilization Audiobook By Lawrence H. Keeley cover art

War Before Civilization

Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for $0.00
Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.

War Before Civilization

By: Lawrence H. Keeley
Narrated by: Gary Appleton
Try for $0.00

$0.00/mo. after 3 months. Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $24.95

Buy for $24.95

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

The myth of the peace-loving "noble savage" is persistent and pernicious. Indeed, for the last fifty years, most popular and scholarly works have agreed that prehistoric warfare was rare, harmless, unimportant, and, like smallpox, a disease of civilized societies alone. Prehistoric warfare, according to this view, was little more than a ritualized game, where casualties were limited and the effects of aggression relatively mild.

Lawrence Keeley's groundbreaking War Before Civilization offers a devastating rebuttal to such comfortable myths and debunks the notion that warfare was introduced to primitive societies through contact with civilization. Building on much fascinating archeological and historical research and offering an astute comparison of warfare in civilized and prehistoric societies, from modern European states to the Plains Indians of North America, War Before Civilization convincingly demonstrates that prehistoric warfare was in fact more deadly, more frequent, and more ruthless than modern war.

This Ascend Audio recording of the book War Before Civilization by Lawrence H. Keeley is text copyright © 1996 Oxford University Press, Inc. and 2024 by Ascend Audio LLC. All rights reserved. This recording may not be copied, or played for an audience, without the written permission of Ascend Audio LLC.

©1996 Oxford University Press, Inc. (P)2024 Ascend Audio LLC
Military
All stars
Most relevant  
This book illuminates the reality of human existence which is neither Hobbesian nor Russeauian but much more complex. The fact is that war has almost always been a part of life and the myth of the noble savage is a dream of those who are isolated from these primitive societies. The individuals who have lived with the greatest peace are those within modern nation states where war is pushed out beyond their borders. In tribal society every man is a warrior and everyone bares the scars of war.

Reality

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.