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{{Header|African Genesis 11/20}}  
{{Header|Territorial Imperative 03/22}}
{{Infobox book
[[image:Territorial-Imp.jpg|right|thumb|{{bc|Territorial Imperative}}]]
| title        = '''''African Genesis'''''
'''''Territorial Imperative''''' (aka: ''The Territorial Imperative A Personal Inquiry Into the Animal Origins of Property and Nations'' by [[Robert Ardrey]].
| library      = Reference library
| title_orig    =
| translator    =
| image        =
| image_caption =
| author        = [[Robert Ardrey]]
| illustrator  =
| cover_artist  =
| country      =
| language      = English
| series        =
| subject      =
| genre        =
| publisher    = Bantam books
| release_date  = 6th edition (1977)
| english_release_date =
| media_type    =
| pages        = 384 pp.
| size          = 9.1 x 6.6 x 1.1"
| ship_wt      = 1.6 lbs
| isbn          = 055310215X
| preceded_by  =
| followed_by  =
}}
{{review|mark.moore@dial.pipex.com|Amazon.com}}


For those dissatisfied with the ludicrous baggage of the world's gods and religions as the origin of mankind and the source of human behavior, [[Robert Ardrey]] is a good place to start. Though some of his conclusions are now outdated by modern research, no one has written with more poetry and skill on this topic than Ardrey.
{{review|'A Customer'|Amazon.com}}


Throughout his quartet of books on human origins ([[African Genesis]] is the first of the four] Ardrey shows how mankind is less of a fallen angel and more of a risen ape; and that man truly is still only a halfway house between the ape and the human being.
Who are human beings? What they are? How do we deal with the reality of what human beings are? Anyone who has ever put these and similar questions will read the book by [[Robert Ardrey]] with great interest.


After a Broadway flop American playwright Robert Ardrey [author of the play Thunder Bay and the script for the film Khartoum among others] toured East and Southern Africa in the early 1960s. This was a time when astonishing fossil discoveries were being made in the Olduvai Gorge by the Leakey family and by others showing that man had originated in Africa some 2 million years ago. Ardrey talked to the fossil-hunters, the paleontologists and the anthropologists and learned all he could of the new discoveries and their implications for human origins and behavior.
People are both biological and social beings, and these two natures are ineradicable in them. While human social life has become the subject of studies in the social sciences, human biology has become, to great degree, exclusively the subject of medicine. R. Ardrey's aim was to draw a bridge over the "no man's land" between the natural and social sciences, since in his own words, "no man or other animal lives as other as a whole thing."


Ardrey's main thesis is that mankind was born in Africa over 2 million years ago, and for most of that two million years the species' success has been largely dependant on its ability to kill. Without that underlying hard edge the species would have vanished aeons ago along with all the others that failed to survive. And only if we take that unpalatable truth about ourselves into account can modern mankind be truly understood.
Attachment to a certain territory, which Ardrey has defined as the "territorial imperative", is a most deeply rooted feature of all living beings, from a worm to a human. R. Ardrey begins his book with the definition of this central notion: "A territory is an area of space, whether of water or earth or air, which an animal or group of animals defends as an exclusive preserve. The word is also used to describe the inward compulsion in animate beings to possess and defend such a space." Of course, the most inventive of animals - the human species - have extended their "territories" far beyond their apartments or garden plots to spheres of influence in business and politics, employment, etc. In the book by Robert Ardrey a reader will find answers and clues to the question: "Why do things happen in human everyday life and history as they happen and not according to the precepts of the most enlightened minds?" His answers are more informative than many volumes of writings about "man and society".


The book is moving and beautifully written. If you want to understand human nature, and the possibilities for the future of the species, there is no better place to start than <I>"African Genesis"</I>.


;Product Details
:Paperback
:Publisher: A Delta Book; First Edition edition (1966)
:Language: English
:asin: B001Q8OAVA
:Product Dimensions:  8.4 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
:Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces
{{cat|Books}}
{{Ardrey}}
{{Anthropology}}
{{Anthropology}}


{{footer}}
{{footer}}
{{cat|Reference Library|books}}
{{cat|Reference Library|books}}

Latest revision as of 10:54, 5 September 2022

Territorial Imperative

Territorial Imperative (aka: The Territorial Imperative A Personal Inquiry Into the Animal Origins of Property and Nations by Robert Ardrey.

Review from Customer' 'A Customer' website:
by Amazon.com

Who are human beings? What they are? How do we deal with the reality of what human beings are? Anyone who has ever put these and similar questions will read the book by Robert Ardrey with great interest.

People are both biological and social beings, and these two natures are ineradicable in them. While human social life has become the subject of studies in the social sciences, human biology has become, to great degree, exclusively the subject of medicine. R. Ardrey's aim was to draw a bridge over the "no man's land" between the natural and social sciences, since in his own words, "no man or other animal lives as other as a whole thing."

Attachment to a certain territory, which Ardrey has defined as the "territorial imperative", is a most deeply rooted feature of all living beings, from a worm to a human. R. Ardrey begins his book with the definition of this central notion: "A territory is an area of space, whether of water or earth or air, which an animal or group of animals defends as an exclusive preserve. The word is also used to describe the inward compulsion in animate beings to possess and defend such a space." Of course, the most inventive of animals - the human species - have extended their "territories" far beyond their apartments or garden plots to spheres of influence in business and politics, employment, etc. In the book by Robert Ardrey a reader will find answers and clues to the question: "Why do things happen in human everyday life and history as they happen and not according to the precepts of the most enlightened minds?" His answers are more informative than many volumes of writings about "man and society".


Product Details
Paperback
Publisher: A Delta Book; First Edition edition (1966)
Language: English
asin: B001Q8OAVA
Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces
Anthropology

Desmond Morris • The Naked Ape • The Human Zoo

Robert Ardrey • African Genesis • The Territorial Imperative • The Social Contract
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