CANNIBALS AND KINGS by Marvin Harris...

CANNIBALS AND KINGS by Marvin Harris (Vintage: $11.00). Harris argues that in many ways, the hunter-gatherers of the Upper Paleolithic Age (30,000-10,000 BC) lived more enjoyable lives than did their 20th-Century descendants: Studies of contemporary tribes indicate that in a reasonably fertile environment, hunter-gatherers need to work only about three hours per day to procure the necessities of life. Reversing the standard thesis, he presents evidence that the development of agriculture did not cause an increase in human population, but that agriculture was devised to counteract the food shortages produced by killing off the large local mammals, especially in the Middle East, China and Meso-America. Harris sees population pressure on ecological resources as one of--if not the --essential dynamics in the development of civilization, and he traces the origins of dietary taboos, warfare, human sacrifice and cannibalism to it. Modern industrialized nations have failed to relieve that pressure, and often squander their vast resources inefficiently--a situation with dire implications for the future of the planet.