This story is examined nicely in Rutger Bregman's book Humankind: A Hopeful History.
TL:DR; It turns out that in the real world, nothing like the Lord of the Flies happened; in fact the opposite happened.
Highly recommend Bregman's book, by the way, which shoots down many of the faulty foundations of what we take for granted as fact today about human nature. I believe this article is an excerpt from the book.
I second this. It challenged a lot of my beliefs and busted a lot of myths (Stanley Milgram, the Stanford prison experiment, etc.). I didn't agree with everything but I rarely ever do, nonetheless it was a great read. A very readable book as well, shouldn't take you longer than a week to read.
Does the book cover the experience more from
the boys’ perspective? I was a little disappointed the article was so light on the details of how they managed.
The book does show the story from the survivor's perspective. Here's a little snippet:
"The kids agreed to work in teams of two, drawing up a strict roster for garden, kitchen and guard duty. Sometimes they quarrelled, but whenever that happened they solved it by imposing a time-out. The squabblers would go to opposite ends of the island to cool their tempers, and, ‘After four hours or so,’ Mano later remembered, ‘we’d bring them back together. Then we'd say “Okay, now apologise.” That’s how we stayed friends.’19 Their days began and ended with song and prayer. Kolo fashioned a makeshift guitar from a piece of driftwood, half a coconut shell and six steel wires salvaged from their wrecked boat – an instrument Peter has kept all these years – and played it to help lift their spirits."
TL:DR; It turns out that in the real world, nothing like the Lord of the Flies happened; in fact the opposite happened.
Highly recommend Bregman's book, by the way, which shoots down many of the faulty foundations of what we take for granted as fact today about human nature. I believe this article is an excerpt from the book.