Editing On Aggression (section)

===Favourable===

J. L. Fischer, reviewing ''On Aggression'' in ''American Anthropologist'' in 1968, called it a "fascinating book by a distinguished animal ethologist" that would "annoy most social and cultural anthropologists" but nonetheless stated "an important thesis", namely that intraspecific aggression was "instinctive in man, as it can be shown to be in a number of other species."<ref name="Fischer 1968">{{cite journal | last=Fischer | first=J. L. | title=On Aggression. Konrad Lorenz, Marjorie Kerr Wilson. | journal=American Anthropologist | volume=70 | issue=1 | year=1968 | doi=10.1525/aa.1968.70.1.02a00890 | pages=171–172| doi-access=free }}</ref> Fischer found Lorenz's account of nonhuman animals at the start of the book, written from Lorenz's own experience, "the most convincing and enlightening".<ref name="Fischer 1968"/> Fischer noted that Lorenz acknowledges the role of [[culture]] in human life but that he perhaps underrated its effects on individual development. Fischer argued that Lorenz's view of the instinctive nature of human aggression was "basically right", commenting that "Lorenz would probably cite the fury of his critics as further proof of the correctness of his thesis".<ref name="Fischer 1968"/>

Edmund R. Leach, comparing the book with [[Robert Ardrey]]'s ''[[The Territorial Imperative]]'' in ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'' in 1966, calls ''On Aggression'' "no landmark, but .. modest and wise, while Ardrey's version is only noisy and foolish."<ref name="Leach 1966">{{cite news |last1=Leach |first1=Edmund R. |title=Don't Say 'Boo' to a Goose |work=[[The New York Review of Books]] |date=15 December 1966 |url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1966/12/15/dont-say-boo-to-a-goose/ |access-date=18 May 2018}}</ref> Leach writes that where Ardrey focuses on territoriality, Lorenz aims to demonstrate that "animal aggression is only a 'so-called evil' and that its [[adaptation|adaptive]] consequences are advantageous or at least neutral."<ref name="Leach 1966"/> Leach is however less sure that Lorenz is correct to equate animal and human aggression, the one taking standard ritualized forms, the other far more complex.<ref name="Leach 1966"/>

The mental health researcher Peter M. Driver reviewed the book in ''Conflict Resolution'' in 1967 alongside two by Ardrey and one by Claire Russell and W. M. S. Russell, ''Human Behavior – A New Approach''. He commented that those against the book, especially S. A. Barnett, [[T. C. Schneirla]], and [[Solly Zuckerman]], were specialists in animal behaviour, while most of the favourable reviews came from "experts in other fields". Driver stated that Lorenz had provided a "powerful thesis" to explain the "aggression gone wrong" in humans, mentioning the millions of deaths in world wars, aggression resembling (Driver argued) the unlimited interspecific attack of a [[predator]] on its prey rather than the kind of intraspecific aggression seen in nonhuman animals which is strictly limited. Driver concluded that ethology could contribute, alongside [[neurophysiology]] and [[psychology]], to resolving the problem of conflict.<ref name="Driver">{{cite journal |last1=Driver |first1=Peter M. |title=Toward an ethology of human conflict: a review |journal=Conflict Resolution |date=1967 |volume=9 |issue=3 |pages=361–374 |doi=10.1177/002200276701100310 |url=https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/67149/10.1177_002200276701100310.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y|hdl=2027.42/67149 |s2cid=143670557 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>