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The question that is asked in the title of this book is heavily weighing on many minds as humanity is facing another war. Albert Einstein, in a historical correspondence in 1932, posed this question to Sigmund Freud. He was hoping that the founder of psychoanalysis had the answers at a time humanity was trying to recover from its first World War and the second one was brewing. Dr. Rendón is not satisfied by Freud's response. The outcome is this book. Dr. Rendón, a child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, drawing on his vast knowledge in various fields of human intellect establishes a sound and compelling argument for a more hopeful future for mankind than Freud. The book is evocative, engaging, a page-turner for the reader who has the stamina to keep up with the dense text.
Freud based his explanation of war primarily on human aggression and destructiveness and suggested the dynamic between the Eros and Thanatos to understand the dialectical tension between the drives. The death instinct formed the crux of his explanation. Rendón's disagreement with Freud's formulation is fundamental. According to Rendón, humanity derailed from a healthier matriarchal societal structure to an unhealthy patriarchal one through the course of its history and social evolution. He sees wars as a symptom of the current unhealthy societal structure and the extensive past and present trauma that is a result of this structure.
Rendón believes that psychoanalysis is uniquely qualified to examine the phenomenon of war. He is listening with the analytic ear, metaphorically speaking, and takes an interpretive stance in studying the human condition. According to Rendón, humanity is in an ailing state, and it is possible to understand this ailing state by looking at the history of mankind: “This book endeavors to answer this question by placing history on the psychoanalytic couch … by interpreting its trauma that repressed altruism. A deeply traumatized animal species, we ourselves inflicted the trauma