egraham's review
5.0
A compelling introduction to deep history that has significantly changed how I'll approach my master's thesis. What can I say, I'm a sucker for interdisciplinary research done right.
philipkenner's review against another edition
4.0
Daniel Lord Smail proposes a new way of looking at early human life. I’m the first three chapters, he breaks down the history of historicization in order to argue for a shift in the way we think about pre-civilization history. Smail argues for a “Deep History,” one which acknowledges human development without a need to focus on the invention of government or writing. In the second half of the book, he links his critique of “Sacred History” to a chronology of human brain development. He suggests historians consider the development of the brain when drawing a map of the origins of humankind. On the flip side, he argues that researchers consider history when researching the brain. The book is ultimately a reframing of history. It was enjoyable and eye opening, although if it can be a little dense and hard to follow at times. The arguments Smail makes are simple in distillation, but because he must present multiple historical viewpoints about history itself, it becomes difficult to understand which historical theories Smail presents is in order to critique or uphold.
icywaterfall's review against another edition
3.0
A good book that historians ought to read.
Historians frequently make the claim that history begins in the Near East, the cradle of civilization, among the farming communities that mushroomed up there. But Smail makes the case that this beginning just replaces the Garden of Eden (which existed at about the same time) with the post-Natufians. We don’t theorise about some metaphysical paradise, but instead we transfer the same chronology onto modern day findings. Same structure, different paint.
A proper Enlightenment perspective doesn’t depend “on the whims of a particular region, but should conform to universal or natural truths.” A history that begins roughly 4,000 years ago? Doesn’t go back far enough. Several hurdles block the path to a proper history including what historians have taken to be the appropriate evidence for the study of history. (The word ‘history’ incidentally dissolves in a consilient mess after you’ve properly understood the book.) If you describe history as the study of self-consciousness (that which first emerges with the written document), then your subject will necessarily begin about 4,000 years ago. But why should we privilege the written document over what Smail calls traces, anything that encodes some sort of information about the past? Written documents, the author claims, are not essential to the writing of history.
Ontogeny describes the development of an individual organism, from beginning to end. Phylogeny describes the evolutionary history of a species. The author claims that while the former has a beginning and an end, the latter does not. I could not disagree more. Phylogeny is ontogeny writ large; there is only a difference in scope between the two, otherwise they’re the same. (It’s because the author is operating from within an Enlightenment paradigm that he makes this claim, a paradigm that seeks to refute the grand narrative of a divine creator at the top of the chain of being. Neo-Darwinism all over again, the claim that no evolved entity is more evolved than any other.)
The latter half of the book concerns Neurohistory, a history based on the evolved brain structures, body chemicals, and universal behavioral patterns that no subject can afford to ignore. However, to acknowledge this point is not to engage in crude genetic determinism, since the degree to which organisms are built by the interaction of genes, environment, and random developmental noise also must be taken on board. He then goes on to talk about exaptations and how the human institutions, while varying from context to context, nonetheless make use of the evolved brain grooves. The mood-altering practices, behaviors, and institutions generated by human culture are referred to as psychotropic mechanisms, mechanisms that powerfully affect the brain, such as teletropic mechanisms (that affect others) and autotropic mechanisms (that affect self).
“To acknowledge the role of psychotropic mechanisms in the development of human societies is to see that what passes for progress in human civilization is often nothing more than new developments in the art of changing body chemistry.” (Nothing buttery school of thought, representative of the orange Enlightenment.)
Historians frequently make the claim that history begins in the Near East, the cradle of civilization, among the farming communities that mushroomed up there. But Smail makes the case that this beginning just replaces the Garden of Eden (which existed at about the same time) with the post-Natufians. We don’t theorise about some metaphysical paradise, but instead we transfer the same chronology onto modern day findings. Same structure, different paint.
A proper Enlightenment perspective doesn’t depend “on the whims of a particular region, but should conform to universal or natural truths.” A history that begins roughly 4,000 years ago? Doesn’t go back far enough. Several hurdles block the path to a proper history including what historians have taken to be the appropriate evidence for the study of history. (The word ‘history’ incidentally dissolves in a consilient mess after you’ve properly understood the book.) If you describe history as the study of self-consciousness (that which first emerges with the written document), then your subject will necessarily begin about 4,000 years ago. But why should we privilege the written document over what Smail calls traces, anything that encodes some sort of information about the past? Written documents, the author claims, are not essential to the writing of history.
Ontogeny describes the development of an individual organism, from beginning to end. Phylogeny describes the evolutionary history of a species. The author claims that while the former has a beginning and an end, the latter does not. I could not disagree more. Phylogeny is ontogeny writ large; there is only a difference in scope between the two, otherwise they’re the same. (It’s because the author is operating from within an Enlightenment paradigm that he makes this claim, a paradigm that seeks to refute the grand narrative of a divine creator at the top of the chain of being. Neo-Darwinism all over again, the claim that no evolved entity is more evolved than any other.)
The latter half of the book concerns Neurohistory, a history based on the evolved brain structures, body chemicals, and universal behavioral patterns that no subject can afford to ignore. However, to acknowledge this point is not to engage in crude genetic determinism, since the degree to which organisms are built by the interaction of genes, environment, and random developmental noise also must be taken on board. He then goes on to talk about exaptations and how the human institutions, while varying from context to context, nonetheless make use of the evolved brain grooves. The mood-altering practices, behaviors, and institutions generated by human culture are referred to as psychotropic mechanisms, mechanisms that powerfully affect the brain, such as teletropic mechanisms (that affect others) and autotropic mechanisms (that affect self).
“To acknowledge the role of psychotropic mechanisms in the development of human societies is to see that what passes for progress in human civilization is often nothing more than new developments in the art of changing body chemistry.” (Nothing buttery school of thought, representative of the orange Enlightenment.)
gyrus's review against another edition
4.0
An excellent though somewhat fragmentary argument in favour of joining currently-considered "history" together with the much-neglected eras of "prehistory", using neurophysiology and neuropsychology as a kind of theoretical glue. A few points. First, it's good to see the ambivalent truth about the Agricultural Revolution getting embedded ever-deeper in academic consensus. Smail's cynicism about its benefits helps to maintain it as a crucial historical pivot, but also demolishes it as an absolute break of progress that cuts us off from hunter-gatherers. Secondly, the way Smail addresses the whole nurture vs. nature, cultural anthropology vs. neo-Darwinism muddle is fresh and smart. A fascinating embrace of the subtle ways that culture and biology interact. Lastly, what can I say? Terence McKenna may have been wrong about the end of the world, but he was way ahead of the curve with much of his other stuff. Of course McKenna isn't mentioned here, but Smail's final thesis - examining drugs and cultural practices as biochemical modulators that drive culture in important ways, charting history as an evolution of cultures with different "psychotropic profiles" - is exactly what McKenna proposed in 1992's Food of the Gods. Not to mention Smail's citing Christopher Boehm, who proposes that cultural practices during the Palaeolithic suppressed primate dominance hierarchies, which re-emerged as the Neolithic exploded. For McKenna that cultural practice was taking psilocybin mushrooms - which is debatable. But the basic trajectory seems to be gaining support. Interesting.
jasminenoack's review against another edition
4.0
I liked this book less before my teacher explained it to me. Yeah I'm stupid deal. I had a problem understanding what brains had to do with it. I also already wrote a paper on it so I don't have much more to say here. Sometime I may read it again to attempt to understand it better. Don't get lost in the argument! It is about brains.
bricoleur's review
2.0
I have the uncomfortable feeling that I believed in the author's premise more before I trudged through his work than after. Perhaps, even worse, I probably even understood his premise better before than after - and I think this is more an indictment of the work itself than in my own limited perspective.
In the preface the author notes:
"People have reminded me how frustrating it can be to read about how and why we should contemplate a deep history without seeing the history itself, and it is hard to disagree with them. The epilogue is a small gesture towards satisfying this need."
Having finished the book I now wish I had taken this statement to heart and skimmed rather than read. For the epilogue is far, far too small a gesture towards redemption of a text that seems more like a chronicling of historians' attitudes to the definition of the word "history" (an only slightly more modern day equivalent to the Medieval Philosopher's arguments over How many angels could sit on the head of a pin?) than the dynamic and bold call to an interdisciplinary study of history that is the author's clarion call.
This is truly disappointing -- as a believer in the power of interdisciplinary work I am always hopeful to see inspired works promoting this aim but, unfortunately, I didn't find this particular work to rise anywhere near the level promised by the cover blurbs.
[Nov. 2007]
In the preface the author notes:
"People have reminded me how frustrating it can be to read about how and why we should contemplate a deep history without seeing the history itself, and it is hard to disagree with them. The epilogue is a small gesture towards satisfying this need."
Having finished the book I now wish I had taken this statement to heart and skimmed rather than read. For the epilogue is far, far too small a gesture towards redemption of a text that seems more like a chronicling of historians' attitudes to the definition of the word "history" (an only slightly more modern day equivalent to the Medieval Philosopher's arguments over How many angels could sit on the head of a pin?) than the dynamic and bold call to an interdisciplinary study of history that is the author's clarion call.
This is truly disappointing -- as a believer in the power of interdisciplinary work I am always hopeful to see inspired works promoting this aim but, unfortunately, I didn't find this particular work to rise anywhere near the level promised by the cover blurbs.
[Nov. 2007]
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