Want to learn the ideas in Tribe better than ever? Read the world’s #1 book summary of Tribe by Sebastian Junger here.

Read a brief 1-Page Summary or watch video summaries curated by our expert team. Note: this book guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by the publisher or author, and we always encourage you to purchase and read the full book.

Video Summaries of Tribe

We’ve scoured the Internet for the very best videos on Tribe, from high-quality videos summaries to interviews or commentary by Sebastian Junger.

1-Page Summary of Tribe

Overall Summary

Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging is a book written by Sebastian Junger. It’s based on the 2016 first-edition hardback published in New York by Twelve/Hachette Book Group. The author, who has been praised for his work with dangerous occupations, draws comparisons to Ernest Hemingway in this nonfiction book about soldiers facing death at sea. In Tribe, he focuses on how people can integrate well into their societies after returning from war.

The book “Tribe” is about how tribal society sustains human life, while modern society threatens the viability of what matters most to humanity—the soul. The first chapter centers around a historical observation that American colonists abducted by Native Americans often did not wish to be repatriated, choosing instead to remain with their new tribe. This phenomenon appears contradictory at best, and absurd at worst.

Chapter 2 begins by saying war makes you more mature, but ends up with the conclusion that societies are most human when they’re faced with calamities such as war. Chapter 3 discusses post-traumatic stress disorder and how it’s not a function of violence, but rather society’s response to it.

Chapter 4, “Calling Home From Mars,” explores the isolation of veterans when they return home from war. Most people think that veterans are traumatized by their experiences in a distant land, but Junger suggests that this isn’t true at all. Instead, he says that the problem is actually social isolation and lack of belonging to a tribe—not past trauma.

Introduction

Junger’s book, Tribe, is a memoir of his experiences when he decided to hitchhike across the northwestern United States after college. He grew up in a sedentary New England suburb where nothing ever happened that was dangerous enough to test people’s ability to rely on each other. This meant that his neighbors were never connected or relied upon one another because life was so predictable and safe.

For Junger, his experience in the war made him realize that he was becoming a man and not just an adult. He had to face very difficult situations where he had no control over anything. The author explains how this helped him appreciate the importance of tribe. People who share common interests, values, backgrounds, or experiences are part of one’s tribe. It is important for people to have such relationships because they help individuals feel less lonely and more fulfilled in life.

Chapter 1: “The Men and the Dogs”

In “The Men and the Dogs”, Junger discusses how modern Western societies developed rapidly in just a few centuries, while indigenous American tribes had barely changed technologically over 15,000 years. He was surprised that these two types of civilizations were so close to each other. While America became an industrialized society with individuals having rights against the group, indigenous people continued to live communally in mobile or semi-permanent settlements largely characterized by consensus decision making and egalitarian relationships between members of the tribe. The author thinks that individuals have no rights above those of their community.

Junger points out that there were two kinds of societies in the area, and many generations lived on both sides. Whites left colonial society to join neighboring Indian tribes, and whites who were captured by Indians and later freed sought to return to their adoptive indigenous tribes. When whites were forced to leave their adopted tribe, both the Indians and their white kin grieved over this loss.

At the same time, instances of Indians leaving their tribe to join colonial society were rare. Junger discusses how modern technology has made it possible for people to live in a way that makes life easier and more predictable, but this comes with its own set of challenges.