Summary and Reviews of Tribe by Sebastian Junger

Tribe by Sebastian Junger

Tribe

On Homecoming and Belonging

by Sebastian Junger
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (12):
  • Readers' Rating (1):
  • First Published:
  • May 24, 2016, 192 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Book Summary

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.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

Junger is content to diagnose the problem as he sees it, and other than a couple of feel-good examples of "giving back" from a World War II vet and a businessman who volunteered to cut his salary to keep paying his employees, the book offers no substantive solutions to the problem of the loss of tribalism in modern American culture. I wish he had looked more closely at countries outside of the U.S.—Italy, for example—where the idea of "family" still implies a more cohesive social bond. Still, the evidence of a diminished sense of social cohesion in modern society is undeniable, and Tribe offers a compelling brief for those who long for the sense of community America once had—before it even became America...continued

Full Review (1115 words)

This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access, become a member today.

(Reviewed by James Broderick).

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Beyond the Book



The Kung Tribe

Africa's Kalahari desert might seem an unlikely model for American society. But the Kalahari—a sparsely populated swath of sun-baked bushland that boasts temperatures regularly above 100 degrees during the day and just a few inches of rainfall every year—is home to a tribe of nomadic people called the Kung (part of the San people, also known as Bushmen). In Tribe, Sebastian Junger celebrates the virtues of the Kung people, suggesting their tribal ways might just hold the solution to our modern American sense of isolation and emptiness.

"The relatively relaxed pace of Kung life—even during times of adversity—challenged long-standing ideas that modern society created a surplus of leisure time. It created exactly the...

This "beyond the book" feature is available to non-members for a limited time. Join today for full access.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked Tribe, try these:

  • The Catalyst jacket

    The Catalyst

    by Jonah Berger

    Published 2022

    About this book

    From the author of New York Times bestsellers Contagious and Invisible Influence comes a revolutionary approach to changing anyone's mind.

  • And West Is West jacket

    And West Is West

    by Ron Childress

    Published 2016

    About this book

    Winner of the prestigious PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, And West Is West is an inspired novel about two young people who learn, the hard way, about the devastating power of new technology to isolate us from the consequences of our actions.

We have 7 read-alikes for Tribe, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
More books by Sebastian Junger
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    The Husbands
    by Holly Gramazio
    The Husbands delights in asking: how do we navigate life, love, and choice in a world of never-ending options?

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Girl Falling
    by Hayley Scrivenor

    The USA Today bestselling author of Dirt Creek returns with a story of grief and truth.

  • Book Jacket

    Jane and Dan at the End of the World
    by Colleen Oakley

    Date Night meets Bel Canto in this hilarious tale.

  • Book Jacket

    The Antidote
    by Karen Russell

    A gripping dust bowl epic about five characters whose fates become entangled after a storm ravages their small Nebraskan town.

Who Said...

It is among the commonplaces of education that we often first cut off the living root and then try to replace its ...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

T B S of T F

and be entered to win..