Our Brains at War

Reviews / Votes

Emotions and instincts, of which we are often barely aware, end up shaping profoundly the way we humans make war and make peace. Inspired by her personal experience as a first-hand witness in a deep-seated ethnic conflict, and informed by her professional experience as a peace-builder, Mari Fitzduff delves deep into the new behavioural sciences to offer us an eye-opening and thought-provoking set of insights about the brain and conflict and what we can do to help make peace possible. A true pleasure to read and recommend to others! * William Ury, Co-author of Getting to Yes and author of The Third Side * An excellent and readable book describing Our Brains at War and more besides. I recognise from long experience and introspection much of what Mari Fitzduff tells us and I found the explanation of the effects of social media revealing. I recommend the book to those who seek to resolve the confrontations that give rise to conflicts and the military who engage in them. * General Sir Rupert Smith, KCB, DSO, OBE, QGM * This remarkable book, by one of the field's most innovative thinkers and one of its most inspirational practitioners, brings neuroscience into the service of peace. It will transform our understanding of peacebuilding, while providing a welcome charge of oxytocin for all those struggling to respond to the personal and political demands of making peace in a troubled world. * Tom Woodhouse, Co- author of Peacekeeping in the 21st Century * Growing up in a violent community teaches you how little rational argument contributes to conflict resolution. If you doubt that, you need to read this book to catch up with the complex biopsychosocial research picture that has been emerging in recent years. The book is full of the multi-disciplinary references you need if you are to understand what is happening. * Lord John Alderdice, FRCPsych, Senior Research Fellow, Oxford University, and formerly Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly * A psychological tour de force! In Our Brains at War, renowned scholar Mari Fitzduff sheds light on powerful neuropsychological factors that propel groups to war and that can move them toward peace. This book is a must-read for peacebuilders, military leaders, government officials, students of conflict resolution, and anyone who care about the future of our planet. Highly recommended! * Daniel L. Shapiro, Associate Professor of Psychology, Harvard Medical School, and author of Negotiating the Nonnegotiable * Mari Fitzduff expertly unpacks 21st century drivers of conflict-fear, 'them and us' thinking, irrationality and mob mentality-leaving us with neurological wisdom and fresh and practical strategies for building peace! Cutting edge and brilliant as ever! A welcome tome! * Emma Leslie, Executive Director, Centre for Peace and Conflicts Studies * A tour de force, Mari Fitzduff's Our Brains at War is indispensable reading for researchers, academics, policy makers, and practitioners grappling with the causes of war and violent conflict as well as strategies for peacebuilding. Building on the strong foundations of the multidisciplinary literature on conflict and peace studies, Fitzduff masterfully weaves in the exciting advances in neuroscience that allow us to better understand the psychological and biophysical correlates underlying human attitudes and behaviour leading to violence and their implications for peacebuilding. * Necla Tschirgi, Distinguished Professor, Human Security and Peacebuilding, Kroc School of Peace Studies, University of San Diego * How are human beings propelled to war? Via our emotions or reason? It seems that we, as individuals, groups, ornations, are often propelled to war by the compelling engines of unrecognised toxic emotions and rational biases. The good news is that by understanding and acknowledging this, as Fitzduff explains, we can better use our reason and emotions to prevent war and better effect peace. * Alain Lempereur, Director Program on Conflict Resolution and Coexistence, Brandeis University * The integration of neuroscience is critical to the peacebuilding field's effectiveness, but few peacebuilders have experience in neuroscience. This book should be required reading for anyone working in conflict settings and is precisely what is needed to understand our 'brains on conflict' and effectively integrate this knowledge into conflict prevention and resolution programs. * Liz Hume, Acting Chief Executive Alliance for Peacebuilding * In this pioneer peacebuilding book, peace builders scholars and practitioners and policy makers, finally have a current, systematic, and well documented exploration of the links between our minds and bodies and human engagement in war and peace. Mari Fitzduff, offers a fascinating set of stories and enough evidence that we no longer can afford to avoid the impact of genetic, neurological, and hormonal predispositions on our so called "rational thinking" and decision making processes. Considering the flow of information and images in our globalized reality, it is a must for peacebuilders and policy makers to seriously understand and take into account the implicit and explicit roles that our biosocial and neural legacies play when confronting violence and war. The book opens many doors for intellectually stimulating discussions and possible practical tips for practitioners. * Mohammed Abu-Nimer, Professor of Peace and Conflict Resolution, American University * This book is a foundational primer that is not just an introduction to what promises to be an integrative, critical field of applied science, but also a harbinger for encouraging improvement in the human condition via areas heretofore untested-epigenetics or neural plasticity? Dr. Fitzduff is to be applauded for such a comprehensive review of the scientific literature and to make it accessible and understandable to all. Now it is up to us to put it into action * Chris E. Stout, Founding Director, Center for Global Initiatives and Chief Clinical Officer, Prevail Health *