Schumpeter's view was that imperialism is an atavistic impulse pursued by a state independent of the interests of the economic ruling class.

Pekic himself reflected: "Rutkowski was wrong when he believed that by simply being the product of Christian civilization and middle-class tradition he was safe from these barbaric, atavistic impulses."

In embarking upon an orgy of destruction, savaging the very possessions that once meant so much to them, the film's divorcing ex-lovebirds speak clearly to a refreshing and atavistic impulse any audience can understand.

Evolutionary psychologists explain presidential philandering as an atavistic impulse left over from the early days of the human race.

It may be an atavistic impulse, but I did feel inclined to see with my own eyes the man who posted such an amazing score of new personae.

Its power comes from the spectacle of a civilized, middle-class Maine doctor succumbing to the atavistic impulse to answer violence with violence.

He had felt stirrings of atavistic impulses in recent weeks-the more especially when the young girl Saya looked at him.

In that intellectual vacuum your party's foreign policy has been reduced to two crude, atavistic impulses, neither of which constitutes a coherent strategic vision.

There was an atavistic impulse in him which had always kept him away from the herd, and outside the law, relying entirely on his own initiative and wits.

This reference to man's antecedents establishes an important theme in the film: the residual atavistic impulses in 20th-century man.