rossbm's review
4.0
(read as ebook)
I really like this book, but it fell a bit short of 4 stars. The main thesis is that there is no "progression" ,"ladder" or "direction" in terms of how society is organized, especially in terms of complexity and hierarchy. Humans have always experimented with different ways of interacting and organizing ourselves. The thing that distinguishes the current period is that we have become "stuck" in one of doing things. The authors don't really lay out why this might be, but I suppose it comes down to globalization. We have one large Earth spanning culture now, even though things do differ from place to place.
There's a lot of speculation in this book and a bit tedious, over detailed, at times, but though provoking. Highly recommend and might be worth a reread.
I really like this book, but it fell a bit short of 4 stars. The main thesis is that there is no "progression" ,"ladder" or "direction" in terms of how society is organized, especially in terms of complexity and hierarchy. Humans have always experimented with different ways of interacting and organizing ourselves. The thing that distinguishes the current period is that we have become "stuck" in one of doing things. The authors don't really lay out why this might be, but I suppose it comes down to globalization. We have one large Earth spanning culture now, even though things do differ from place to place.
There's a lot of speculation in this book and a bit tedious, over detailed, at times, but though provoking. Highly recommend and might be worth a reread.
lauraglovestoread'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
rick2's review
5.0
Fantastic, mind expanding book.
When I was 18 I read Howard Zinn’s “People’s history of the United States“ and I remember feeling like the world had opened up before me. The standardized narrative of history taught to us in the United States, then tested upon, then retaught, then tested, again and again. George Washington and his noble honesty. How sweet and welcoming the native tribes were when the Pilgrims landed. All a happy Disney narrative that doesn’t actually exist. I don’t have the answers for an alternative, maybe we don’t need to expose kids to the early American genocides and the brutal realities of history. But maybe we should? I genuinely don’t have a great take. I know that for me, learning about those topics at 18 was illuminating and since this is my review….
I think back to Peoples History as the book that really instilled in me a love of self directed reading. don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of problems with Howard Zinn. But it was the first nonfiction book I read, that I absolutely devoured. That shook my knowledge and worldview. there’s been a handful of similar books since then. Books that take you by your pant cuffs, flip you upside down and shake you about. Talib, Nelson Mandela, James Baldwin, Steinbeck, Tolstoy. Books that will always stick with me.
I’m overjoyed to add this book into that pantheon.
The book sets out to challenges the “taken for granted“ notions about government and governance, pointing out the blindspot that European and modern American scholars have for alternative structures of government. It’s interesting coming off reading a history of Greece where Aristotle and Plato bandy about what they consider to be the core principles of governance. Because essentially the core idea of this book is that we’re limited by the box that we mentally put ourselves in. We assume that we need a sort of centralized, higher ideal endorsed, government. From monarchy to the modern swing into democracy, that’s typically been the structure. That the social contract is a real thing. Everything else is barbarism.
But to consider that structure the “default“ is a failure of scholarship and imagination. Graeber goes through Native American cultures, central American cultures, South American cultures and points out, and in my opinion convincingly, shows us how this thread of feudalism, monarchy, into democracy or is more of an oddity than we might expect. Other cultures have not always centralized organization into a single strong man or single entity. The current popular idea that cereal and grain lead to government isn’t true if you look at the hundreds of organizations historically that have avoided that path.
And, you hear this kind of whispering in your ear when reading other history. I remember reading about the Comanches and how they would gather for part of the year and then disperse in the localized tribes. The Mongols have historically done something similar and it’s only our failures as empathetic scholars that tell us they engaged in this behavior with an agenda. Our failures of imagination lead us to impose our values and beliefs onto them. Graeber and Weingrow remind us, maybe we shouldn’t.
We prioritize this western narrative in large part because there’s so much available material to repackage and shovel into continuing conversations about “history.” It’s so much easier to go learn a little Greek and read Plato, to talk about his influences on Rousseau, Then it is to attempt to reconstruct the scholarship of the Mayans or Pacific Isles from stone fragment and forgotten symbols.
And I’m sure there’s methodical issues and genuine problems with the scholarship here. I’ve heard the rumblings already as scholars leap to defend themselves and their chosen narratives. Things and concepts that will go over my head. Let them throw rocks.
.
When I was 18 I read Howard Zinn’s “People’s history of the United States“ and I remember feeling like the world had opened up before me. The standardized narrative of history taught to us in the United States, then tested upon, then retaught, then tested, again and again. George Washington and his noble honesty. How sweet and welcoming the native tribes were when the Pilgrims landed. All a happy Disney narrative that doesn’t actually exist. I don’t have the answers for an alternative, maybe we don’t need to expose kids to the early American genocides and the brutal realities of history. But maybe we should? I genuinely don’t have a great take. I know that for me, learning about those topics at 18 was illuminating and since this is my review….
I think back to Peoples History as the book that really instilled in me a love of self directed reading. don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of problems with Howard Zinn. But it was the first nonfiction book I read, that I absolutely devoured. That shook my knowledge and worldview. there’s been a handful of similar books since then. Books that take you by your pant cuffs, flip you upside down and shake you about. Talib, Nelson Mandela, James Baldwin, Steinbeck, Tolstoy. Books that will always stick with me.
I’m overjoyed to add this book into that pantheon.
The book sets out to challenges the “taken for granted“ notions about government and governance, pointing out the blindspot that European and modern American scholars have for alternative structures of government. It’s interesting coming off reading a history of Greece where Aristotle and Plato bandy about what they consider to be the core principles of governance. Because essentially the core idea of this book is that we’re limited by the box that we mentally put ourselves in. We assume that we need a sort of centralized, higher ideal endorsed, government. From monarchy to the modern swing into democracy, that’s typically been the structure. That the social contract is a real thing. Everything else is barbarism.
But to consider that structure the “default“ is a failure of scholarship and imagination. Graeber goes through Native American cultures, central American cultures, South American cultures and points out, and in my opinion convincingly, shows us how this thread of feudalism, monarchy, into democracy or is more of an oddity than we might expect. Other cultures have not always centralized organization into a single strong man or single entity. The current popular idea that cereal and grain lead to government isn’t true if you look at the hundreds of organizations historically that have avoided that path.
And, you hear this kind of whispering in your ear when reading other history. I remember reading about the Comanches and how they would gather for part of the year and then disperse in the localized tribes. The Mongols have historically done something similar and it’s only our failures as empathetic scholars that tell us they engaged in this behavior with an agenda. Our failures of imagination lead us to impose our values and beliefs onto them. Graeber and Weingrow remind us, maybe we shouldn’t.
We prioritize this western narrative in large part because there’s so much available material to repackage and shovel into continuing conversations about “history.” It’s so much easier to go learn a little Greek and read Plato, to talk about his influences on Rousseau, Then it is to attempt to reconstruct the scholarship of the Mayans or Pacific Isles from stone fragment and forgotten symbols.
And I’m sure there’s methodical issues and genuine problems with the scholarship here. I’ve heard the rumblings already as scholars leap to defend themselves and their chosen narratives. Things and concepts that will go over my head. Let them throw rocks.
.
dixiet's review
5.0
4-1/2 stars rounded up. Excellent, mind-opening scholarship and desperately needed myth-busting.
jo_the_bookworm's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
informative
slow-paced
3.75