Sebastian Junger

We have a strong instinct to belong to small groups defined by clear purpose and understanding--"tribes." This tribal connection has been largely lost in modern society, but regaining it may be the key to our psychological survival. Decades before the American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin lamented that English settlers were constantly fleeing over to the Indians-but Indians almost never did the same. Tribal society has been exerting an almost gravitational pull on Westerners for hundreds of years, and the reason lies deep in our evolutionary past as a communal species. The most recent example of that attraction is combat veterans who come home to find themselves missing the incredibly intimate bonds of platoon life. The loss of closeness that comes at the end of deployment may explain the high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder suffered by military veterans today. Combining history, psychology, and anthropology, TRIBE explores what we can learn from tribal societies about loyalty, belonging, and the eternal human quest for meaning. It explains the irony that-for many veterans as well as civilians-war feels better than peace, adversity can turn out to be a blessing, and disasters are sometimes remembered more fondly than weddings or tropical vacations. TRIBE explains why we are stronger when we come together, and how that can be achieved even in today's divided world.

On Homecoming and Belonging

Tribe

Andrew Reeves

A great read, but at 136 pages I'm not sure why it was published. Felt incomplete or that it should have been a big magazine feature or something. Still a fascinating topic, though.

Andrew John Kinney

I wish Sebastian Junger had organized his argument in this book a little better, with references to peer-reviewed articles or other highly credible studies, because I think he's got a point, but it's not a well articulated point. In short, he feels that people, but particularly men, and more particularly combat veteran men, are not integrated into American society in a way that gives their lives meaning after the intense experience of combat, or at least membership in highly cohesive military units with clear missions. I know plenty of such men, starting with myself, who struggled a little or a lot with leaving the military and adapting to the corporate world. Junger contrasts that with the way tribal societies easily re-integrated their men after wars. In my case, the struggle was short-lived; I had children within eighteen months of leaving the Army, and I did not have time for self-pity about how unimportant my engineering job seemed compared to my Army assignments. I moved on, but I never really took my jobs in tech companies all that seriously; we were not saving lives or preventing despots from invading their neighbors. Only in retrospect do I see how much the tech revolution of the '90's and 00's changed the world, and it had a much bigger effect than US military special operations in that era.

But if the answer, as Junger seems to imply, is that we need war in order to bind societies together, I disagree. National service, maybe including military service is a good idea, and reducing wealth inequality is an excellent idea, but war is what we do not need. So at the end of the book, I'm really not entirely sure what Junger is advocating, but I do think he is right to call out the growing lack of a sense of community, and the growing us-versus-them partisanship in the US, and to name the ways American individual success undermines the success of the society writ large. There were a lot of interesting anecdotal arguments about why "American Indian" societies were so cohesive, but little in the way of how to bring such cohesiveness to American society.

Desire JoRay

This book helps shed light on why we are all so lonely in a world that is more connected than ever. An easy read that has me re-evaluating my priorities when I envision my family’s future.

From the author of THE PERFECT STORM and WAR comes a book about why men miss war, why Londoners missed the Blitz, and what we can all learn from American Indian captives who refused to go home. Tribe is a look at post-traumatic stress disorder and the challenges veterans face returning to society. Using his background in anthropology, Sebastian Junger argues that the problem lies not with vets or with the trauma they've suffered, but with the society to which they are trying to return.One of the most puzzling things about veterans who experience PTSD is that the majority never even saw combat-and yet they feel deeply alienated and out of place back home. The reason may lie in our natural inclination, as a species, to live in groups of thirty to fifty people who are entirely reliant on one another for safety, comfort and a sense of meaning: in short, the life of a soldier.It is one of the ironies of the modern age that as affluence rises in a society, so do rates of suicide, depression and of course PTSD. In a wealthy society people don't need to cooperate with one another, so they often lead much lonelier lives that lead to psychological distress. There is a way for modern society to reverse this trend, however, and studying how veterans react to coming home may provide a clue to how to do it. But it won't be easy.

Rick Dobrowolski

Fascinating book written by a psychologist and dealing with the topic setup by its title - being a part of a tribe instead of individualistic in one’s outlook on life. He comes to some very important conclusions on what is wrong with our American individualistic society. Sadly, he doesn’t come to many answers. While I greatly appreciated and agreed with the observations that he made about our society, I wish that he would have spent at least a portion of time on solutions.

Marcella Chamorro

Interesting look at humanity, heavy on military talk though

I really enjoyed the book as a whole, but I could've done without so much military research. The military section seemed to repeat itself for fifty pages. The parts about Native American tribes, though, were fascinating.

Worth a read if you're interested in community.

Sahi K

I read this book because it was one of Jason Kander’s recommendations during a Twitter chat. I guess it was an okay book though and while I can’t exactly pinpoint what my issue was, I did feel uncomfortable at many points. Maybe it was just too concerned with masculine/male tribal behaviors and didn’t feel universal enough for me to connect.

Tribe On Homecoming and Belonging

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