“Like it or not, war is distinctively human. Apart from the raiding behavior of chimpanzees and the so-called wars prosecuted by certain species of ant, there is nothing in nature that comes anywhere near approximating it.” — David Livingstone Smith Copy Share Image
“Mark a hen’s comb with an oddly colored spot, or tie it so it hangs in a peculiar direction, and her former flock mates will attack her mercilessly. Jane Goodall, who was the first scientist to observe chimpanzees up close… — David Livingstone Smith Copy Share Image
“n medieval Europe, a new slave would place his head under his master’s arm, and have a strap placed around his neck, in imitation… — David Livingstone Smith Copy Share Image
“The history of humanity is, to a very great extent, a history of violence.” — David Livingstone Smith Copy Share Image
“Three years earlier, when the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq became public, Rush Limbaugh—the most popular radio broadcaster in the United States, whose… — David Livingstone Smith Copy Share Image
“Self-deception is an indispensable element of war, and that despite the fact that wars are calculated and planned, there is a sense in which… — David Livingstone Smith Copy Share Image
“We find human faces in the moon, armies in the clouds; and by a natural propensity, if not corrected by experience and reflection, ascribe… — David Livingstone Smith Copy Share Image
“A poll of U.S. servicemen indicated that 44 percent would like to kill a Japanese soldier while only 6 percent felt the same way… — David Livingstone Smith Copy Share Image
“In a typically grandiose description of the military exploits of Pharaoh Amenemhet I, who ruled Egypt from 1985 to 1956 BCE, the enemies of… — David Livingstone Smith Copy Share Image
“Like it or not, war is distinctively human. Apart from the raiding behavior of chimpanzees and the so-called wars prosecuted by certain species of… — David Livingstone Smith Copy Share Image
“A 1945 film called Japan: Know Your Enemy, directed by Frank Capra (who directed several popular motion pictures during the 1930s and ’40s, including… — David Livingstone Smith Copy Share Image
“Early Muslim references to dehumanization were overtly ethnocentric. Almost without exception, the people who are transformed into subhuman creatures—specifically, pigs, apes, and rats—are Jews.” — David Livingstone Smith Copy Share Image
“Unlike these verses from the Koran, references to dehumanization in the hadith compiled two or three centuries later have a distinctly anti-Jewish flavor. They… — David Livingstone Smith Copy Share Image
“Sometimes the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are presented as a hunting expeditions (“As British close in on Basra, Iraqis scurry away”; “Terror hunt… — David Livingstone Smith Copy Share Image
