cover image A Talent for Friendship: Rediscovery of a Remarkable Trait

A Talent for Friendship: Rediscovery of a Remarkable Trait

John Edward Terrell. Oxford Univ., $29.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-19-938645-1

Is friendship a transaction designed to smooth over our naturally brutish human nature? Or is it intrinsic to our being? Terrell, a leading anthropologist of Oceania and author of the seminal Prehistory in the Pacific Islands, offers a more complex answer in this wide-ranging, if at times meandering book. Terrell mounts a case that draws from his work on trade and interaction among Oceanic tribal peoples, as well as from classic works of evolutionary anthropology. He denies that people are naturally prone to conflict, or that humans have evolved into uniquely social creatures. Instead, we are, like other mammals, social but cursed with the cognitive ability to create norms that others might not agree to. Unfortunately, it takes a long time to get back to this pithily stated premise, and the book’s circuitous, talky route through Darwin, highlights from social psychology, and Terrell’s own work is disorienting and rarely friendly to the lay reader. Even more baffling is the guide, included as an appendix, to hosting a marae encounter—a traditional, regimented meeting process among New Zealand’s Maori people. As a theory of friendship, Terrell’s work is elegant, but readers’ patience for it may wear thin. 14 b&w halftones and 8 b&w line illus. (Dec.)