For almost all of human history, we lived in a state of nasty tribal conflict as groups battled to take what others had produced and kill or enslave their rivals. Then, some 500 years ago, things began to change. We went from tribal conflict to peaceful cooperation, bringing about a gigantic improvement in life.

University of California at Santa Cruz professor John Ellis has written a splendid book entitled A Short History of Relations Between Peoples, explaining how this change came about, and I review it here for the Martin Center.

What makes the book particularly interesting to a higher-education think tank is the way Ellis shows that the “progressive” beliefs promoted by so many of our academic elites today are undermining centuries of progress toward harmony. They oppose free speech and inquiry because some ideas might be hurtful to sensitive people, so they seek to censor and silence voices they dislike. They want to have “equity” among groups, so individual merit must be sacrificed. How people are to be treated once again depends on their group membership.

Ellis brilliantly attacks the hostility among academics for the defense of western civilization. He argues that the “Western Civ” courses that are being discarded are not really “western” but rather bring together the threads that are responsible for modern life. Those include individual liberty, limited government, and capitalism — ideas that “progressives” want to bury.

I strongly recommend the book.