Feud, War and Peacemaking

Conflict is not a breakdown of culture — it is patterned by it. Anthropologists separate a dispute between two people from a feud, in which whole kin groups are held answerable, from warfare between political communities. And they pay as much attention to how fighting stops as to why it starts. Climb the ladder to watch the fighting units grow, then switch to peacemaking to see what closes each kind of quarrel.