Peace and Conflict Studies


Book Description

Thoroughly revised, the Second Edition of Peace and Conflict Studies sets the new gold standard as an accessible introduction and comprehensive exploration of this vital subject. The authors share their vast knowledge and analysis about 21st-century world events – including new coverage on timely topics such as terrorism, the truth and reconciliation process, and the clash of civilizations. With an encyclopedic scope, this introductory text chronicles a plethora of important global topics from pre-history to the present. Key Features of the Second Edition Includes updated chapters and examines current conflicts, including the Iraq War Explores the important aspects of positive peace, individual violence, nationalism, and terrorism Provides numerous visual aids, questions for further study, and suggested readings Furnishes a comprehensive range of material to enlighten and enrich future discussion and encourage further academic pursuit Intended Audience This text is invaluable for students and professors in peace and or conflict studies, psychology and or the sociology of peace and conflict studies, international relations, comparative politics, history, and others interested in gaining a solid foundation about the global arena. Praise for the First Edition "Barash and Webel have penned a masterpiece that should appeal to seasoned scholars of peace and conflict studies as well as to others who have little knowledge of this multidisciplinary field." --Daniel J. Christie, Ohio State University




Comparing Behavior


Book Description

First published in 1983. The aim of this book was to get a sense of how scientists viewed their own comparative domain. Using references from a variety of fields including anthropology, ethology, genetics, philosophy, psychology, and zoology. It includes a diversity of approaches for discussion on how to compare behavior.




Social Behavior


Book Description

Sociobiology is the play of the season. Its success is mellsured by its immense popularity and perhaps by the controversy it has generated as well. Unfortunately, neither its popularity nor the resulting controversy seems likely to assure progress toward understanding sociobiological issues. The play has too many actors and, it seems, the casting has been poor; the players are unable to maintain their roles. At center stage, of course, is E. O. Wilson and his monumental opus Sociobiology. 1 In the wings, and making periodic entrances, are an assort ment of brilliant, committed, and aggressive adversaries. On cue, one of them steps out and decries the self-fulfilling nature of sociobiological prophesies. The arguments of the adversaries are varied. They warn that if all nonhuman primate societies tolerate aggression and man is also a pri mate, then aggression may come to be considered "normal" and therefore acceptable. Their dire warnings may also have real impact on policy, alter ing, for example, a research program intended to examine longitudinally the relation between a supernumerary chromosome and certain behavioral disorders. The rationale is that since the afflicted infants would have to be identified and the study obviously does assume that psychopathology is linked to the chromosome aberration, the attitudes of the child's parents could well contribute to abnormal behavior that might otherwise not appear.




Narrow Roads of Gene Land: Volume 1: Evolution of Social Behaviour


Book Description

Why is `blood thicker than water'? Are we innately violent or pacific? Why are plants and animals sexual? Why do we grow old and die? Such questions have motivated the life-work of W.D. Hamilton, widely acknowledged as the most important theoretical biologist of the 20th century. His papers continue to exert an enormous influence and they are now being republished for the first time. This first volume contains all of Hamilton's publications prior to 1981, a set especially relevant to social behavior, kinship theory, sociobiology, and the notion of `selfish genes'. Each paper is introduced by an autobiographical essay written especially for this collection. Accessible to non-specialists, this fascinating volume features several of the most read and famous papers of modern biology.




Sociobiology


Book Description

When this work was first published it started a tumultuous round in the age-old nature versus nurture debate. It shows how research in human genetics and neuroscience has strengthened the case for biological understanding of human nature.




Social Behavior and Communication


Book Description

Other books in this series focus on behavior at the individual level, approached from the viewpoints of biochemistry, anatomy, physiology, and psychology. In this volume we show how the functioning nervous systems of interacting individuals are coordinated, with the ultimate creation of complex social structures. The intri cacies of an individual's nervous system have been subject to intense inquiry, and research at the chemical, cellular, and organ levels has made remarkable progress. Work at the social level has been conducted somewhat independently, by way of behavioral phenomena and communicative interactions. With the emergence of a large body of information from neurobiology, the beginnings of an integrated approach are possible. New data on social functions are presented in the chapters to follow, and the forward-looking reader may wish to reflect on how they clarify understanding of interactions between two or more independent nervous systems. The outcome is harmonious social structure and improvement in the inclusive fitness of group-living individuals. We believe that there is in prospect a new way of looking at social function that will ultimately increase our understanding of the highest and most complex levels of neurobiology. The modern approach to the study of social behavior involves more than the recording of interactions between animals. Each individual brings to the process of social interaction the implications of its prior genetic and experiential history.




Sex and Behavior


Book Description

Discussion of the precise nature and position of boundaries between dis ciplines is nearly always counterproductive; the need is usually to cross them not to emphasize them. And any such discussion of the distinction between ethology and comparative psychology would today seem patently absurd. While there may be differences in outlook, no boundaries exist. But when Frank Beach started in research, that was not the case. Comparative psychology flourished in the United States whereas ethology was unknown. Beach started as a comparative psychologist and has always called himself either that or a behavioral endocrinologist. Yet, among the com parative psychologists of his generation, he has had closer links with the initially European ethologists than almost any other. He was indeed one of the editors of the first volume of Behaviour. That this should have been so is not surprising once one knows that his Ph. D. thesis concerned "The Neural Basis for Innate Behavior," that he used to sleep in the laboratory so that he could watch mother rats giving birth, and that in 1935 he was using model young to analyze maternal behavior. Furthermore, for nine years he worked in the American Museum of Natural History-in a department first named Experimental Biology and later, when Beach had saved it from extinction and become its chairman, the Department of Animal Behavior. It was in 1938, during Frank's time at the American Museum, that he was first introduced to Niko Tinbergen by Ernst Mayr.




Science


Book Description




Property and Freedom


Book Description

"A superb book about a topic that should be front and center in the American political debate" (National Review), from the acclaimed Harvard scholar and historian of the Russian Revolution An exploration of a wide range of national and political systems to demonstrate persuasively that private ownership has served over the centuries to limit the power of the state and enable democratic institutions to evolve and thrive in the Western world. Beginning with Greece and Rome, where the concept of private property as we understand it first developed, Richard Pipes then shows us how, in the late medieval period, the idea matured with the expansion of commerce and the rise of cities. He contrasts England, a country where property rights and parliamentary government advanced hand-in-hand, with Russia, where restrictions on ownership have for centuries consistently abetted authoritarian regimes; finally he provides reflections on current and future trends in the United States. Property and Freedom is a brilliant contribution to political thought and an essential work on a subject of vital importance.




The Ecology of Social Behavior


Book Description

The Ecology of Social Behavior explores the relationships between ecology and the origins and maintenance of social behavior. The chapters in this book suggest that a consideration of ecological factors is necessary to any paradigm that tries to explain the origins and maintenance of social behavior. Most also suggest that there are some trade-offs between ecology, genetics, and phylogeny in the development and persistence of specific social systems. The book is organized into five parts. Part I provides an overview of the main themes covered in the present volume. Part II contains papers on ecological interactions, including variation in group sizes of forest primates, group foraging, and the origin of monogamy in mammals and fishes. Part III examines the ecology of social mammals. These include the ecological conditions for philopatry and the relationship of habitat variability to sociality in yellow-bellied marmots. Part IV focuses on the ecology of social birds while Part V deals with the ecology of social arthropods.