On Humans

The Why of War and the How of Peace, Part II: Lessons from Prehistory ~ Douglas P. Fry

How old is war? Does it stretch deep into human origins, or did warfare become common only as growing populations settled down? In Part II of this conversation with Douglas P. Fry, we return to the long-running debate about the origins of war. Fry revisits his argument that aggression is ancient, but war is not. I put that claim to the test, raising some of the strongest objections from archaeology and the study of modern hunter-gatherers. We discuss Jebel Sahaba, nomadic and settled foragers, food storage, marine resources, population growth, and the archaeological sequences through which warfare seems to emerge in different parts of the world.Is war an ancient adaptation—or a more recent cultural development? And is the answer relevant to our modern quest for a more peaceful world?Enjoy!FACT-CHECKINGNo errors have been detected in this conversation. If you notice one, please get in touch via Substack or the form below.LINKSFry's 2026 book: ⁠Advanced Introduction to Conflict Resolution⁠Support: ⁠⁠Patreon.com/OnHumans⁠⁠Articles & newsletter: ⁠⁠OnHumans.Substack.com⁠⁠Get in touch: ⁠⁠https://forms.gle/h5wcmefuwvD6asos8⁠⁠Music credit: Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) via Pixabay.NAMES MENTIONEDDouglas P. Fry | Luke Glowacki | Richard Wrangham | Brian Ferguson | Christopher Boehm | Richard B. Lee | Donald E. BrownETHNIC GROUPS AND HISTORICAL REGIONSNorthwestern Alaska | Valley of Oaxaca | Jebel Sahaba  | Monte Albán | Zapotec Empire | Calusa people | Batek people | Orang Asli | Juǀ’hoansi, !Kung | Mbuti KEY WORDSOrigins of war | prehistory of war | history of warfare | causes of war | why humans go to war | anthropology of war | anthropology of peace | peace studies | conflict studies | war studies | peace and conflict studies | evolutionary anthropology | human evolution | human nature and war | hunter-gatherer warfare | hunter-gatherers | nomadic hunter-gatherers | mobile foragers | complex hunter-gatherers | prehistoric violence | interpersonal violence | coalitionary aggression | coalitionary killing | lethal aggression | human aggression | conflict resolution | restraint of aggression | archaeological evidence of war | archaeology of warfare | archaeological record | Pleistocene | Holocene | Neolithic warfare | origins of social complexity | sedentism | permanent settlements | food storage | population growth | population density | resource competition | resource intensification | marine resources | aquatic resources | Neolithic revolution | human universals | evolutionary psychology | chimpanzee warfare 

The Why of War and the How of Peace, Part I: Lessons from the Modern World ~ Douglas P. Fry

History is full of wars. Why? Is war driven by fear? Greed? Revenge? Ambitious leaders? Is it rooted deep in human nature—or does it emerge only under particular social conditions? And what do we learn if we change the angle from wars to non-wars? What lessons emerge from a study of all the periods and regions where war did not take place? My guest in this two-part mini-series is Douglas P. Fry, an anthropologist who has spent decades studying these questions. He is also a returning guest, and one of the first scholars ever to appear on this podcast.In Part II of our conversation, we will return to the topic of our episode from years back: the origins of war in prehistory. In this first part, however, we take a very different approach. We discuss lessons from modernity, with our topics ranging from the quest for peace after WWII to the societies in the Brazilian Amazon and Indigenous North America.What makes former enemies trust one another? What roles are played by equality, trade, or a new shared enemy? And how can cycles of fear, retaliation, and revenge be reversed without simply surrendering to aggression?At a time when war once again dominates the news, these questions could hardly be more urgent. But they also point towards a part of the human story that is too easily forgotten: our capacity not only to make war, but to understand it—and to build peace that lasts.Enjoy!FACT-CHECKINGMy wording on Ukraine giving up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for "security guarantees" is slightly stronger than the formal language of the Budapest Memorandum, which talked of “security assurances” rather than legally binding security guarantees.If you notice a factual error in this conversation, please get in touch via Substack or the form below. LINKSFry's 2026 book: Advanced Introduction to Conflict ResolutionSupport: ⁠Patreon.com/OnHumans⁠Articles & newsletter: ⁠OnHumans.Substack.com⁠Get in touch: ⁠https://forms.gle/h5wcmefuwvD6asos8⁠Music credit: Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) via Pixabay.NAMES MENTIONEDDouglas P. Fry | Geneviève Souillac | Jean Monnet | Konrad Adenauer | Mahatma Gandhi | Edward Westermarck | Charles E. Osgood | Brian Ferguson | Eleanor Roosevelt | Vladimir Putin KEY WORDSDouglas P. Fry | peace studies | conflict studies | war studies | peace and conflict studies | anthropology of war | anthropology of peace | war and peace | causes of war | origins of war | human nature and war | peacebuilding | conflict resolution | peace systems | lasting peace | international cooperation | nonviolence | revenge | reciprocity | negative reciprocity | deterrence | security dilemma | arms race | nuclear weapons | nuclear disarmament | Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons | TPNW | Budapest Memorandum | United Nations | UN peacekeeping | Blue Helmets | UN Security Council | international law | global governance | World War II | Second World War | post-war peace | European integration | Jean Monnet | European Coal and Steel Community | Switzerland | Nordic peace | Åland Islands dispute | League of Nations | Upper Xingu peace system | Indigenous peace systems | Haudenosaunee Confederacy | Iroquois Confederacy | Great League of Peace | GRIT strategy | Graduated Reciprocation in Tension Reduction | Charles E. Osgood | Edward Westermarck | Ukraine war | Russia–Ukraine war

The Big Picture: Measuring the Origins of the Modern World ~ Bishnupriya Gupta & Stephen Broadberry (Great Divergence #5)

Was India once an affluent empire, later impoverished by British colonisation? Or was India never rich to begin with? More generally, what does historical data on wages and other economic indicators tell us about the broader story of the making of the modern world – a world with great affluence, but where much of the riches are still concentrated in the Western world.For over 20 years now, Stephen Broadberry and Bishnupriya Gupta have worked to measure the evolution of global living standards from the medieval period onwards. In this episode, they begin by discussing a comparison between the historical economies of India and Britain. We then continue to a broader story of the living standards of the pre-industrial world. We also discuss different theories of the “Great Divergence” between the West and the rest of the world. We finish by turning our attention to the future, asking if the 21st century will be remembered as the Asian century.This episode concludes the five-part series on the making of the modern world, produced by CAGE Research Centre and On Humans. LINKS AND REFERENCESDo you prefer reading to listening? You can find⁠ a summarised essay ⁠of this conversation, with a bibliography, at our series page:⁠ ⁠https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/news/podcasts/⁠⁠ NAMES MENTIONEDKenneth Pomeranz | Angus Maddison | Daron Acemoglu | James Robinson |  Nico Voigtländer | Hans-Joachim Voth | Debin Ma | Robert Allen | Joel Mokyr KEYWORDSEconomics | History | Global Economic History | Industrial Revolution | Indian history | Imperial history | East India Company | Emperor Akbar | Colonisation | Historical GDP estimates | Historical living standard estimates | Wage history | History of labour | Social history | Comparative development | State capacity | Malthusian trap | History of Technology INFOGuests: Bishnupriya Gupta (University of Warwick) and Stephen Broadberry (University of Oxford)   ⁠⁠⁠Contact: ⁠greatdivergencepod@gmail.com

A View From the East: China, Japan, and the Other Paths to Prosperity ~ Debin Ma (Great Divergence #4)

The tech gap between China and the West is closing fast. But why did the land that invented paper and gunpowder ever fall behind? Debin Ma is the world’s leading economic historian of East Asia. In this fourth episode of our Great Divergence series, he approaches the making of the modern world from an eastern perspective. We discuss why China fell behind, why Japan modernised early, and why East Asia has experienced so many economic miracles. We also discuss China’s recent transformation – a transformation that Ma has witnessed firsthand. LINKS AND REFERENCESDo you prefer reading to listening? You can find⁠ a summarised essay ⁠of this conversation, with a bibliography, at our series page:⁠ ⁠https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/news/podcasts/⁠⁠GREAT DIVERGENCE: THE MAKING OF THE MODERN WORLDThis episode is part of a series produced by Warwick University’s⁠ ⁠CAGE Research Centre⁠⁠ in collaboration with⁠ ⁠On Humans⁠, searching for explanations to why Western Europe and North America emerged as the most affluent and technologically advanced regions of the modern world. Guided by six expert guests, including a winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in economics, we approach this topic with balance and breadth, exploring everything from colonialism and fossil fuels to science and technology. 1 | Why the West? Colonies, fossil fuels, and lessons from China (Kenneth Pomeranz)2 | Why did so many inventions come from Europe? (Joel Mokyr)3 | Why did the Industrial Revolution happen in Britain? (Robert Allen)  4 | A view from the East: China, Japan, and the other paths to prosperity (Debin Ma)5 | The big picture: Measuring the origins of the modern world (Bishnupriya Gupta and Stephen Broadberry)NAMES MENTIONEDJoseph Needham | Kenneth Pomeranz | Joel Mokyr | Robert Allen | Francis Fukuyama | Jared Rubin | Yin Weiwen | Kaiser Kuo | Deng Xiaoping | Yasheng Huang KEYWORDSEconomics | History | Global Economic History | Industrial Revolution | Chinese history | Japanese history | Developmental Economics | Needham Puzzle | Needham Question | Qianlong Emperor | Macartney embassy | Meiji Japan | Iwakura mission |  Age heaping | Comparative development | State capacity | Modern fiscal state | History of taxation | Industrial Policy | History of Technology | Human capitalINFOGuest: Debin Ma (Fudan University and All Souls College, University of Oxford)   ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Host: Ilari Mäkelä (⁠⁠⁠On Humans⁠⁠⁠)Contact: ⁠greatdivergencepod@gmail.com

Why Did the Industrial Revolution Happen in Britain? ~ Robert Allen (Great Divergence #3)

Why was industrial modernity born in Europe and not, say, China? This is one of the most consequential questions about the origins of the modern world. Yet asking “why Europe” can mislead. The Industrial Revolution was not a European event. It was a British event.So why was the steam engine invented in Britain, and not France or Italy?Oxford professor Robert Allen has worked for decades trying to understand this question. Allen believes that to understand the path to modernity, we must forget grand generalisations about the West. Instead, he asks us to zoom in on two very specific dynamics that shaped the British economy in the 1700s: cheap fuel and expensive workers. Together, they jolted Britain into a path where ever more work was streamlined with the help of machines and fossil fuels — a path that we are still walking on, with AI and robotics simply the latest sightings on this long march of modernity.In this episode, we discuss the surprising revelations that led Allen to his theory. We discuss the reasons that British wages were high, and we discuss recent scholarship suggesting that this wasn’t the case–or at least, was not the cause for the Industrial Revolution. We also discuss the more humane side of wages, tracing the history of worker wellbeing from the Black Death to today. As always in this series, we finish with our guests’ reflections on the future.LINKS AND REFERENCESDo you prefer reading to listening? You can find⁠ a summarised essay ⁠of this conversation, with a bibliography, at our series page:⁠ ⁠https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/news/podcasts/⁠⁠GREAT DIVERGENCE: THE MAKING OF THE MODERN WORLDThis episode is part of a series produced by Warwick University’s⁠⁠ ⁠CAGE Research Centre⁠⁠⁠ in collaboration with⁠⁠ ⁠On Humans⁠⁠, searching for explanations to why Western Europe and North America emerged as the most affluent and technologically advanced regions of the modern world. Guided by six expert guests, including a winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in economics, we approach this topic with balance and breadth, exploring everything from colonialism and fossil fuels to science and technology. 1 | Why the West? Colonies, fossil fuels, and lessons from China (Kenneth Pomeranz)2 | Why did so many inventions come from Europe? (with Joel Mokyr)3 | Why did the Industrial Revolution happen in Britain? (Robert Allen)  4 | A view from the East: China, Japan, and the other paths to prosperity (Debin Ma)5 | The big picture: Measuring the origins of the modern world (Bishnupriya Gupta and Stephen Broadberry)NAMES MENTIONEDJames E. Thorold Rogers | Kenneth Pomeranz | Joel Mokyr | Jane Humphries | Daniel Defoe | Bradford J. (Brad) DeLong | Branko Milanovic | Daron Acemoglu | Oded GalorKEYWORDSEconomics | History | Global Economic History | Industrial Revolution | Age of Inventions | Steam engine| European Miracle | British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective | Wage history | History of labour | Social history | Comparative development | Meiji Japan | Spinning Jenny | Industrial Policy | History of Technology | History of Inventions EPISODE INFOGuest: Robert C. Allen (Nuffield College, University of Oxford and NYU Abu Dhabi)   ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Host: Ilari Mäkelä Contact: ⁠⁠⁠⁠greatdivergencepod@gmail.com⁠⁠⁠⁠Music by Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) ⁠⁠⁠via Pixabay⁠