This 700 page tome is an attempt to change the narrative of how humans organize themselves and therefore implicitly critique the rigidity of our society now. Overall, I learned a LOT from the book; the details of many of the societies, historical and indigenous, were new to me and it was organized in a novel way. From ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lirazel's rec, which actually details the arguments the book makes.
The main flaw is that while it's fun to read takedowns, the book often tilts into defensive territory and too much ink is spilled on this. It reads like a series of university lectures, which is far too repetitive for a book. And yet despite this, sometimes their own hypotheses were very much citation needed, when they overreached.
A collection of interesting tidbits:
- Many cultures made seasonal changes of social structure; the variations in the seasonal changes are also huge. For example, European carnival, when social structures are turned upside down.
- "Scholars and professional researchers, on the other hand, have to actually make a considerable effort to remain so ignorant" lol
- A great deal of space is devoted to hammering the point home that it was Native American ideas of democracy and free thinking that started the Enlightenment, and it was not brought over from Europe with the guns and germs etc. (This was a very important point! It was repeated a LOT.) (Also, our ideas of more indulgent child rearing originate there too.)
- Ancient Greeks considered elections not democratic and an aristocratic mode (sortition was the democratic choice)-- and this carried through for Medieval Europe as well.
- There was a long period of time when people explored farming (on the flood plains ofc), while still hunting/foraging. Farming was originally a method of last resort, to get food out of less productive land.
- The process of schismogenesis, when neighboring groups start defining themselves in opposition to each other.
- The authors posit the basic freedoms are to move, to disobey, to rearrange social ties. "To move" is the most basic one, from which the others derive; obviously has implications for our current society.
- The space in between the famous dynasties and empires is when people were probably least oppressed etc, and more work should be devoted to that.
- Humans always CHOOSE how their communities are shaped deliberately.
Anyway, I learned a lot from the book, but I feel like it could have used some tightening. I also am not necessarily completely convinced of all the presented evidence, BUT I think the points it makes are valuable nonetheless. On the scale of popsci books, it's on the pop side, very much a brief survey, but is not annoyingly so.
lirazel's rec, which actually details the arguments the book makes. The main flaw is that while it's fun to read takedowns, the book often tilts into defensive territory and too much ink is spilled on this. It reads like a series of university lectures, which is far too repetitive for a book. And yet despite this, sometimes their own hypotheses were very much citation needed, when they overreached.
A collection of interesting tidbits:
- Many cultures made seasonal changes of social structure; the variations in the seasonal changes are also huge. For example, European carnival, when social structures are turned upside down.
- "Scholars and professional researchers, on the other hand, have to actually make a considerable effort to remain so ignorant" lol
- A great deal of space is devoted to hammering the point home that it was Native American ideas of democracy and free thinking that started the Enlightenment, and it was not brought over from Europe with the guns and germs etc. (This was a very important point! It was repeated a LOT.) (Also, our ideas of more indulgent child rearing originate there too.)
- Ancient Greeks considered elections not democratic and an aristocratic mode (sortition was the democratic choice)-- and this carried through for Medieval Europe as well.
- There was a long period of time when people explored farming (on the flood plains ofc), while still hunting/foraging. Farming was originally a method of last resort, to get food out of less productive land.
- The process of schismogenesis, when neighboring groups start defining themselves in opposition to each other.
- The authors posit the basic freedoms are to move, to disobey, to rearrange social ties. "To move" is the most basic one, from which the others derive; obviously has implications for our current society.
- The space in between the famous dynasties and empires is when people were probably least oppressed etc, and more work should be devoted to that.
- Humans always CHOOSE how their communities are shaped deliberately.
Anyway, I learned a lot from the book, but I feel like it could have used some tightening. I also am not necessarily completely convinced of all the presented evidence, BUT I think the points it makes are valuable nonetheless. On the scale of popsci books, it's on the pop side, very much a brief survey, but is not annoyingly so.
