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A review by lkedzie
The Invention of Prehistory: Empire, Violence, and Our Obsession with Human Origins by Stefanos Geroulanos
challenging
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
5.0
Amazing intellectual history charting the concept of prehistory from the moment of conception that there could be something called prehistory up until the modern day.
It far exceeded my expectations on three points. The first and foremost is the genealogical take to ideology. What the author consistently raises is how much the ideas that arise out of the study (and imagination) of prehistorical life are ones that exist in contemporary life: prehistory as trope factory. Even when existing in a vestigial form, where the ideas are at such modern disconnect from their original forms as to be unique (more or less) the functional connect is stunning to see.
And see you do, which is the second point. This is a sumptuously visual book (even on Kindle!) where the author considers both paleoimagry as well as visual representation. What they mean is considered but also how they are used. It is a stunning to witness the transformations and variations, and how each visual act is used to enforce or upend theory or ideology.
Third, it is wry as ****. I notionally try and avoid reading reviews before writing my own, but I peeked here because I was surprised that I had not heard of this book before happening across it in Libby, and was wondering if there was something I was missing about it. I write about my love of polemic, but this is the, er, rule that proves the exception. Polemic is interesting because being fair is difficult, so a full-throated assertion is more useful to understanding both sides. A critical reading can fill in the gaps better than the author needing to spend time doing so. Here, since the author's point amounts to ideology being a sort of idee fixe for prehistory, to the point that the book has almost a downer ending, he is free to retain a casual distance from most of who he discusses. This is hard to do; this is enlightening, and this is frequently glib, adding a further layer of joy onto a book that is already full of wonderful material.
This is also somewhere between provocative and infuriating if you are unwilling to go along with the premise, if your objective is getting the thing the book is arguing is not specifically relevant as revealed through history-history.
My singular complaint (other, perhaps, than feeling that way when it hit on my own priors, before I got over it) is that it is too much of a good thing. This is not a slow read because it is unreadable. This is a slow read due to the volume and scope of what is going on. Overall, this is one of those books where the first thing I did on finishing it is to order up a copy so that I can re-read it later.
It far exceeded my expectations on three points. The first and foremost is the genealogical take to ideology. What the author consistently raises is how much the ideas that arise out of the study (and imagination) of prehistorical life are ones that exist in contemporary life: prehistory as trope factory. Even when existing in a vestigial form, where the ideas are at such modern disconnect from their original forms as to be unique (more or less) the functional connect is stunning to see.
And see you do, which is the second point. This is a sumptuously visual book (even on Kindle!) where the author considers both paleoimagry as well as visual representation. What they mean is considered but also how they are used. It is a stunning to witness the transformations and variations, and how each visual act is used to enforce or upend theory or ideology.
Third, it is wry as ****. I notionally try and avoid reading reviews before writing my own, but I peeked here because I was surprised that I had not heard of this book before happening across it in Libby, and was wondering if there was something I was missing about it. I write about my love of polemic, but this is the, er, rule that proves the exception. Polemic is interesting because being fair is difficult, so a full-throated assertion is more useful to understanding both sides. A critical reading can fill in the gaps better than the author needing to spend time doing so. Here, since the author's point amounts to ideology being a sort of idee fixe for prehistory, to the point that the book has almost a downer ending, he is free to retain a casual distance from most of who he discusses. This is hard to do; this is enlightening, and this is frequently glib, adding a further layer of joy onto a book that is already full of wonderful material.
This is also somewhere between provocative and infuriating if you are unwilling to go along with the premise, if your objective is getting the thing the book is arguing is not specifically relevant as revealed through history-history.
My singular complaint (other, perhaps, than feeling that way when it hit on my own priors, before I got over it) is that it is too much of a good thing. This is not a slow read because it is unreadable. This is a slow read due to the volume and scope of what is going on. Overall, this is one of those books where the first thing I did on finishing it is to order up a copy so that I can re-read it later.