A review by gyrus
On Deep History and the Brain by Daniel Lord Smail

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.