An Ode to the Unmentioned Scientific Heroes of Humanity's Deadliest Endeavour - A Review of Grunt

Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War by Mary Roach

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


War is one of the things humanity is famous (or notorious) for, not least because it is one of the things that makes us who we are, as a species. Though some scientists have recently begun to claim that chimpanzees and ants engage in warfare, other scientists are leery of making such claims, stating that the idea that animals engage in warfare is anthropomorphising them and therefore not sound science. It also doesn’t help that our own species has a hard time deciding what a “war” is: what one group of people call a “rebellion” or “revolt” might be called a “war” by another (example: the Philippine-American War of 1898-1902, which some still call “the Philippine Rebellion”).

For the most part, though, when we think of the word “war” we think of “armed conflict between two groups of people”: a “hot” war as opposed to a “cold” war (the latter involving no armed conflict between two opponents, though they may participate indirectly in other “hot” wars waged by nations allied with them, as happened in the Cold War between the United States and the USSR in the wake of World War II). The problem with hot wars, though, is that they are incredibly messy. Any person with even a mild interest in history and/or current events is entirely aware that there is nothing glorious about war, and not just because of the violence on the battlefield. Keeping fighters both physically and emotionally healthy both on and off the battlefield is an arduous and often thankless task, but what these unmentioned war heroes do is incredibly important. It is their stories that Mary Roach tells in Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War.

( Read more... )