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Unearthing the most primal motivations behind the fear politics movements sweeping across the USA, Europe, and the Middle East, Stevan E. Hobfoll examines how the increasing sense of threat from the political and cultural "other" or "outsider" engenders an evolutionary, built-in "defend and aggress" response. This deep-wired evolutionary response is a defining aspect of our tribal origins and has allowed for the rise of propaganda, extremist politics, and-in turn-violence. In this timely work, which binds theories in psychology, sociology, evolution, biology, linguistics, iconography, rhetoric, and religion, Hobfoll explores the tribalist roots of radical militant Islam, violence against women, white supremacy, the rise of authoritarian leaders, and an increasingly polarized and uncompromising political landscape. Grounded in evolutionary psychological research, Hobfoll´s long term study of stress, and in conversation with contemporary academic literature, Tribalism not only offers an explanation for society´s worst impulses, but also points us towards the best protections against tribalism and other evolutionary traps.

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1. The Tribal Self and the Power of Catastrophic Threat Messaging

2. Threat and the Tribal Self

3. Truth and Rationality become Casualties of Fear

4. Historical Threat and the Priming of Violence

5. The Primal Emergence of the Authoritarian Father Leader

6. Radical Jihad and Paranoid Supremacists

7. Tribal Enslavement of Women: Women´s Bodies as a Battleground

8. Barricade and Throw Grenades: The Entrenchment of Tribalism and Fear Politics

9. Through a Glass Darkly: Reversing Tribal Intolerance and Aggression

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Stevan E. Hobfoll is the Judd and Marjorie Weinberg Presidential Professor and Chair of the Department of Behavioral Sciences at Rush University Medical Center, USA. He is a former Senior Fellow of the Center for National Security Studies at the University of Haifa, Israel. He has authored and edited twelve books, including Traumatic Stress, The Ecology of Stress, and Stress, Culture, and Community.

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