Blood Rites

What draws our species to war and makes us see it as a kind of sacred undertaking? In Blood Rites, renowned social critic Barbara Ehrenreich plumbs the mystery of the human attraction to violence.

With a new foreword from peace campaigner Milan Rai, this modern classic takes us on an original journey from the grasslands of prehistoric Africa to the trenches of Verdun, from the spectacular human sacrifices of pre-colonial Central America to the carnage and holocaust of twentieth-century ‘total war’.

Ehrenreich traces the evolution of war from prehistoric forms of socially-sanctioned violence to the mass religion we know today as nationalism, and shows the persistence of ancient fears in the most modern rituals and passions of war.

Brillant in conception, rich in detail, epic in scope, Blood Rites is a monumental work that transforms our understanding of the archaic practice that has become the biggest single threat to human life.

Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of fifteen books. She has written for Time, Harper's, the New York Times Magazine, The Times and the Guardian. She lives in Virginia, USA.