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cmcrockford's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
Wow. Could not recommend enough. For fans of Graeber's other books and political history in general.
Content Warnings
Graphic: War, Genocide, and Colonisation
Moderate: Rape, Religious bigotry, Murder, Sexual violence, and Racism
laurareads87's review against another edition
funny
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
5.0
"What if we treat people, from the beginning, as imaginative, intelligent, playful creatures who deserve to be understood as such? What if, instead of telling a story about how our species fell from some idyllic state of equality, we ask how we came to be trapped in such tight conceptual shackles that we can no longer even the possibility of reinventing ourselves?" [9]
Absolutely fantastic. In this wide ranging, ambitious book, "the Davids" pick apart deep seated presumptions underlying much of anthropology and history and demonstrate that not only are these assumptions not aligned with facts, but that they are rooted in ideological commitments that refuse to allow the possibility that ancient ways of organizing societies were the result of deliberation and decision-making. Dismantling assumptions like 'cities that are complex need hierarchies' and 'social development is determined by technology,' the Davids discuss examples of early societies from all over the world as experimenting with how best to live and organize themselves and ask how it is that unlike our ancestors, many of whom lived in societies that oscillated between different political systems seasonally, many of us can barely even imagine alternate forms of social, political, and economic life.
Absolutely fantastic. In this wide ranging, ambitious book, "the Davids" pick apart deep seated presumptions underlying much of anthropology and history and demonstrate that not only are these assumptions not aligned with facts, but that they are rooted in ideological commitments that refuse to allow the possibility that ancient ways of organizing societies were the result of deliberation and decision-making. Dismantling assumptions like 'cities that are complex need hierarchies' and 'social development is determined by technology,' the Davids discuss examples of early societies from all over the world as experimenting with how best to live and organize themselves and ask how it is that unlike our ancestors, many of whom lived in societies that oscillated between different political systems seasonally, many of us can barely even imagine alternate forms of social, political, and economic life.
Content Warnings
Minor: Confinement, Xenophobia, Sexism, War, Antisemitism, Slavery, Torture, Racism, Rape, Sexual violence, and Murder
finn_1312's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation and Genocide
Moderate: Slavery and War
Minor: Antisemitism, Cannibalism, Torture, Kidnapping, and Rape
anarchism, archeology, societal organizationsohva's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
3.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Colonisation
Minor: Rape, Suicide, Slavery, Animal death, Religious bigotry, Torture, War, Violence, Physical abuse, Murder, Genocide, and Racism
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