Deadly Developments

By: S. P. Reyna and R. E. Downs

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Synopsis: Ten anthropologists trace the machinations of war and the effects of violence in capitalist states, from their formation to the present. This collection, the newest volume in the War and Society series, questions the foundations of classical social theory while investigating local and international conflict through the critical and cross-cultural lens of social theory, history, and anthropology. The essays combine to challenge the notion developed by social theorists such as Comte, Spencer, Durkheim, and Engels that war will diminish with the formation and the perpetuation of a capitalist economy and industry. The development of capitalist states, and the nefarious and violent processes which must occur to reproduce capitalism, are rarely realized and then infrequently analyzed. Many western and ethnocentric scholarly representations of war succeed in hiding the deadly developments that occur as a result of capitalist state formation and relations.