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edustoryramos24's review against another edition
3.0
A very interesting book compromised by delirious and contradictory ambitions.
The authors use abundant, and sometimes repetitive, information on relatively recent anthropological and archeological research to take issue with:
(i) the post 17th Century "consensus" around Jean-Jacques Rousseau´s "noble savage" (who, as they insist in case you didn´t already know, was neither noble nor savage) and Thomas Hobbes´s gloomy Leviathan view to the effect that, due to our base instincts, mankind can only be harnessed by autocracies of some form;
(ii) Mircea Eliade´s thesis, long consensual, that "primitive" cultures lived in a circular time of permanent present rooted in a mythical past, mindset that the Old Testament, Greek philosophy and finally the Enlightenmet gradually disrupted, replacing it by the historical linear view we have now, to (for Eliade) catastrophic effect, and
(iii) Karl Jasper´s Axial Era´s thesis to the effect that sometime between the 8th and 2nd Centuries BCE, in the Americas and where now China, Greece and India are, in a remarkable instance of synchronicity, speculative thought emerged (Plato, Budha, Confucius) that emancipated mankind from mythos to logos and religion from imanence to transcendence.
Turns out, they claim, so called "primitive" peoples were fully capable of sophisticated sophistry, as required, for example, from Native Amercian cheftains holding meetings to prepare ad-hoc alliances for war or big scale hunting campaigns.
Also, there were no "Agricultural" or "Neolithical" revolutions, as for many centuries many cultures lived side by side and interacted with each other retaining one or the other technologies and modes of production, and also no correlation between those and the scale and breadth of intercultural interactions, the dimenstion of the communities involved, wether or not they were nomads or sedentary/urban, or the emergence of monarchy, autarcy, or bureaucracy, as some prehistoric cultures were egalitarians, others not, some matriarchal, some patriarchal, some Pacific Northwest tribes cheap like Calvinists centuries before Max Weber etc etc. And there´s no sequence to any of this, as prehistoric (and pre-Columbian) cultures often amoved mong all of these options without any strong correlation between them.
Which is OK, except it doesn´t necessarily contradict Jaspers or Eliade, (although it does outmode Rousseau and Hobbes a bit, but that´s not news). And anyway, the fact remains that 20K years ago no one was a farmer, 1000 years ago most people were, about 90 years ago more people worked in industry than agriculture and nowadays most of mankind lives in cities and is online. Of course, none of this was inevitable, but, of course, all of this happened.
The authors repeatedly criticise Rouseau, his intellectual heritage and the French revolution "consensus", but insist mankind has gotten things terribly wrong these days and archeology and anthropology indicate other, more egalitarian and free societal models are possible (although they rightly point out that freedom and equality are two culturally contingent ideas). In this liberté/fraternité framework, they conclude with the baffling statement (in light of what they spent the previous 500 pages explaining): "civilization" and "complexitiy" always come at the price of human freedoms.
In case you don´t know, the policital systems we have today haven´t been here since forever and very probably will not stay here forever and, climate change aside, mankind is in a better place, materially speaking, now than ever. Plus, the unprecedented levels of physical and mental freedom many, maybe most, of us have today were enabled precisely by "civilization" and "complexitiy".
Do read this book, just don´t take it´s political pretentions seriously
The authors use abundant, and sometimes repetitive, information on relatively recent anthropological and archeological research to take issue with:
(i) the post 17th Century "consensus" around Jean-Jacques Rousseau´s "noble savage" (who, as they insist in case you didn´t already know, was neither noble nor savage) and Thomas Hobbes´s gloomy Leviathan view to the effect that, due to our base instincts, mankind can only be harnessed by autocracies of some form;
(ii) Mircea Eliade´s thesis, long consensual, that "primitive" cultures lived in a circular time of permanent present rooted in a mythical past, mindset that the Old Testament, Greek philosophy and finally the Enlightenmet gradually disrupted, replacing it by the historical linear view we have now, to (for Eliade) catastrophic effect, and
(iii) Karl Jasper´s Axial Era´s thesis to the effect that sometime between the 8th and 2nd Centuries BCE, in the Americas and where now China, Greece and India are, in a remarkable instance of synchronicity, speculative thought emerged (Plato, Budha, Confucius) that emancipated mankind from mythos to logos and religion from imanence to transcendence.
Turns out, they claim, so called "primitive" peoples were fully capable of sophisticated sophistry, as required, for example, from Native Amercian cheftains holding meetings to prepare ad-hoc alliances for war or big scale hunting campaigns.
Also, there were no "Agricultural" or "Neolithical" revolutions, as for many centuries many cultures lived side by side and interacted with each other retaining one or the other technologies and modes of production, and also no correlation between those and the scale and breadth of intercultural interactions, the dimenstion of the communities involved, wether or not they were nomads or sedentary/urban, or the emergence of monarchy, autarcy, or bureaucracy, as some prehistoric cultures were egalitarians, others not, some matriarchal, some patriarchal, some Pacific Northwest tribes cheap like Calvinists centuries before Max Weber etc etc. And there´s no sequence to any of this, as prehistoric (and pre-Columbian) cultures often amoved mong all of these options without any strong correlation between them.
Which is OK, except it doesn´t necessarily contradict Jaspers or Eliade, (although it does outmode Rousseau and Hobbes a bit, but that´s not news). And anyway, the fact remains that 20K years ago no one was a farmer, 1000 years ago most people were, about 90 years ago more people worked in industry than agriculture and nowadays most of mankind lives in cities and is online. Of course, none of this was inevitable, but, of course, all of this happened.
The authors repeatedly criticise Rouseau, his intellectual heritage and the French revolution "consensus", but insist mankind has gotten things terribly wrong these days and archeology and anthropology indicate other, more egalitarian and free societal models are possible (although they rightly point out that freedom and equality are two culturally contingent ideas). In this liberté/fraternité framework, they conclude with the baffling statement (in light of what they spent the previous 500 pages explaining): "civilization" and "complexitiy" always come at the price of human freedoms.
In case you don´t know, the policital systems we have today haven´t been here since forever and very probably will not stay here forever and, climate change aside, mankind is in a better place, materially speaking, now than ever. Plus, the unprecedented levels of physical and mental freedom many, maybe most, of us have today were enabled precisely by "civilization" and "complexitiy".
Do read this book, just don´t take it´s political pretentions seriously
charleshb's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
5.0
A fantastic book. Illuminating, it will make you look at and think about the origins of human civilization quite differently. That shift can be a springboard to thinking differently about our future. We've not yet reached the end of history. A better world is possible.
woodweird's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
benyoda95's review against another edition
informative
slow-paced
3.5
This book was very academic and if I'm bring honest, there were many times that I had difficulty following what the authors were saying and keeping track of the different societies discussed. I have a hard time recommending this to someone without at least a little experience with anthropology or philosophy.
That being said, I did enjoy this book. I appreciated the deconstruction of many myths that I believed about the progression of societies. It did a great job of posing counter examples to common misconceptions and reinforced some fundamental truths. Growth and progress are not linear nor are they uniform. Humans are complex and so are our societies. The simplest answer is not always the right one, especially when we recognize that what we consider to be simple in the case of societies growth, can sometimes just mean European. Where we are now was not graunreed, and is not necessarily the best, but growth is always an option that we can strive for.
That being said, I did enjoy this book. I appreciated the deconstruction of many myths that I believed about the progression of societies. It did a great job of posing counter examples to common misconceptions and reinforced some fundamental truths. Growth and progress are not linear nor are they uniform. Humans are complex and so are our societies. The simplest answer is not always the right one, especially when we recognize that what we consider to be simple in the case of societies growth, can sometimes just mean European. Where we are now was not graunreed, and is not necessarily the best, but growth is always an option that we can strive for.
thereadingsnail99's review against another edition
5.0
One of the most important, eye opening, revealing, and revolutionary books I have ever read. Should be required reading for all (and I’m deeply sad it probably will never be). The reckoning(s) this book leads one to at both a personal, regional, national, and global scale is just awe inspiring. I appreciated the incorporation of indigenous and feminist lines of thought (though certainly there could have been more, and some of their language still felt oddly sexist despite their seeming progressivism… that being said…) - wildly important book that will make you reconsider everything you think you know about the world, it’s history, who we are, and why we are the way we are today.
daniel_wood's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.0