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A People's History of Civilization
The American anarchist, primitivist philosopher, and author John Zerzan critiques agriculture-based civilization as inherently oppressive and advocates drawing upon the life of hunter-gatherers as an inspiration for what free society should look like. Subjects of his criticism include domestication, language, symbolic thought, and the concept of time.
This book includes sixteen essays ranging from the beginning of civilization to today’s general crisis. Zerzan provides a critical perspective about civilization.
A People’s History of Civilization includes chapters City and its InmatesWar Enters the PictureThe Bronze AgeThe Axial AgeThe Crisis of Late AntiquityRevolt and HeresyModernity Takes ChargeWho Killed Ned LuddCultural LuddismIndustrialism and ResistanceDecadenceWWICivilization’s Pathological Endgame
In recent years, John Zerzan, co-editor of Black and Green Review, has successfully toured Europe to speak from his primitivist perspective regarding contemporary civilization. Zerzan calls Eugene, Oregon
This book includes sixteen essays ranging from the beginning of civilization to today’s general crisis. Zerzan provides a critical perspective about civilization.
A People’s History of Civilization includes chapters City and its InmatesWar Enters the PictureThe Bronze AgeThe Axial AgeThe Crisis of Late AntiquityRevolt and HeresyModernity Takes ChargeWho Killed Ned LuddCultural LuddismIndustrialism and ResistanceDecadenceWWICivilization’s Pathological Endgame
In recent years, John Zerzan, co-editor of Black and Green Review, has successfully toured Europe to speak from his primitivist perspective regarding contemporary civilization. Zerzan calls Eugene, Oregon
317 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 10, 2018
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368 people want to read
About the author
John Zerzan
50 books192 followersAmerican anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author.
His works criticize agricultural civilization as inherently oppressive, and advocate drawing upon the ways of life of hunter gatherers as an inspiration for what a free society should look like.
Some subjects of his criticism include domestication, language, symbolic thought (such as mathematics and art) and the concept of time.
His works criticize agricultural civilization as inherently oppressive, and advocate drawing upon the ways of life of hunter gatherers as an inspiration for what a free society should look like.
Some subjects of his criticism include domestication, language, symbolic thought (such as mathematics and art) and the concept of time.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
September 22, 2020
As usual, Zerzan never fails to disappoint. This critique of “civilization” - that sedentary, agricultural, monetary based monster that arose some 6,000 years ago and has engulfed countless lives in greed, violence, delusion, oppression, and insanity - is brilliant. I don’t know if I’ve ever highlighted so much in a book in my life. Zerzan is an anarcho-primitivist, and takes the rather extreme position that asserts humanity made a mistake thousands of years ago when we switched from Hunter-gatherer bands to agricultural (and later industrial) societies. Before money, class systems, debt, factories, and large-scale warfare, Zerzan doesn’t just believe that life was simpler; he believes that life was better. And while humanity has made great leaps in technology and medicine, what’s still a fact is that our pre-agricultural ancestors still lived an average of 70-80 years on earth. Sounds pretty modern, doesn’t it? Zerzan also points out the fascinating fact that no one can come up with a conclusive reason for why people switched from hunting and gathering to farming. Populations weren’t exploding, so it wasn’t because of that. It’s interesting to ponder, and makes you see civilization through different lenses that, I’m not going to lie, are pretty hard to take off once you put them on.
November 19, 2019
Civilisations Pathological Endgame
It will be of no surprise to learn that as a Primitivist, John Zerzan hasn't got many positive things to say of civilisation. Which is fine by me, I find I too am starting to question this whole endeavour also. How can one not do so when the timeline of post-agricultural revolution societies are nothing but a pinprick on the totality of human existence?* This experiment of Civilisation is laughable brief, and it seems we're lucky enough to be living through what very well may be the final curtain call.
As someone who's jumped into a few authors who've challenged Civilsation as a concept works, I have to admit A People's History of Civilization is the best of all that I've read. However Zerzan is preaching to the choir with this reader. Why should you read it?
You don't have to agree with a Primitivists outlook, but I can guarantee with full confidence that the aforementioned will challenge some of the most basic constructs and concepts that you take for granted. Even my desensitised self was floored in some of the chapters presented. The emphasis on how humans gradually developed ways to seek a means to escape this reality mentally as the post agricultural revolution world made it unbearable really rewired my approach as to how I perceive our current reality. Even my own personal belief in the Buddhas teachings were challenged as being seen by Zerzan as another stage for humans to further escape the reality Civilisation brought to our species. In other words, pre agricultural revolution society certainly wasn't a cake walk, but humans didn't seem to need a means to mentally escape this world. Many of the great religions and concepts of the last 2000 years have been produced as a reaction to the supposed harshness of this world, when in fact they very may well have been reactions to humans insistence on following course with this grand experiment.
As it stands, I think it's our abject duty to read books such as this one, it allows us to understand what happened that's lead us to where we are now; global catastrophe.
*2000 years of civilisation vs. 2-300,000 years of species existence.
It will be of no surprise to learn that as a Primitivist, John Zerzan hasn't got many positive things to say of civilisation. Which is fine by me, I find I too am starting to question this whole endeavour also. How can one not do so when the timeline of post-agricultural revolution societies are nothing but a pinprick on the totality of human existence?* This experiment of Civilisation is laughable brief, and it seems we're lucky enough to be living through what very well may be the final curtain call.
As someone who's jumped into a few authors who've challenged Civilsation as a concept works, I have to admit A People's History of Civilization is the best of all that I've read. However Zerzan is preaching to the choir with this reader. Why should you read it?
You don't have to agree with a Primitivists outlook, but I can guarantee with full confidence that the aforementioned will challenge some of the most basic constructs and concepts that you take for granted. Even my desensitised self was floored in some of the chapters presented. The emphasis on how humans gradually developed ways to seek a means to escape this reality mentally as the post agricultural revolution world made it unbearable really rewired my approach as to how I perceive our current reality. Even my own personal belief in the Buddhas teachings were challenged as being seen by Zerzan as another stage for humans to further escape the reality Civilisation brought to our species. In other words, pre agricultural revolution society certainly wasn't a cake walk, but humans didn't seem to need a means to mentally escape this world. Many of the great religions and concepts of the last 2000 years have been produced as a reaction to the supposed harshness of this world, when in fact they very may well have been reactions to humans insistence on following course with this grand experiment.
As it stands, I think it's our abject duty to read books such as this one, it allows us to understand what happened that's lead us to where we are now; global catastrophe.
*2000 years of civilisation vs. 2-300,000 years of species existence.
December 21, 2020
“The erosion cost of one bushel of Iowa corn is two bushels of topsoil”. “Cattle were not milked until centuries after their initial captivity.” Pre-agriculture, man ate 1,500 species of wild plants while civilizations reduced that number to a paltry six plant species. Under civilization, food diversity keeps dwindling. In this book, John starts mentioning “domestication” in addition to agriculture as bringing “ruin to every civilization”. Marshall Sahlins wrote, “The amount of work per capita increases with the evolution of culture and the amount of leisure per capita deceases.” Hole and Flannery wrote “No group on earth has more leisure time than hunters and gatherers.” The Paleolithic technique of steaming foods with heated stones in a covered pit is a very nutritional way to cook. Modern tech can’t duplicate “laurel leaf” knives. Sacrifice of animals is found only in agricultural cultures. The concept of work did not exist before agriculture. Stored grain was the oldest form of capital. Wild wheat is 24% protein while today’s wheat is 12% protein. Most diseases like malaria come from the heritage of agriculture. U.S. settlers required six oxen to break the soil in the prairies the first time. Monocultures refuse to use manure and humus. In our culture, which demands control of nature, “billions of chickens, pigs and veal calves no longer even see the light of day.” A Nature magazine article in 2016 wrote that plants and animals had 300 million years of stable life before “they were disrupted 6,000 years ago by the spread of agriculture.” Jared Diamond called agriculture “a catastrophe from which we have never recovered.” History has yet to uncover any matriarchal cultures however the lot of a women’s life was better in the pre-state period where the search for food was 80% foraging and 20% hunting. Historians for power like Felipe Fernandez-Armesto (Civilizations) write adoringly about cultures that emphasize domination of nature.
Uruk in 2700 B.P.E. had “a double-ring wall six miles long, fortified by 900 towers.” Once you had agriculture, you had to have protection. Sam Lilley sees pottery as the first step towards the modern production factory. By 2200 B.C. there was a weaving factory in Guabba which employed over 6,000 workers, mostly women and children. Irrigation brought up saltwater leading to abandonment of cities. In 2010, we found out that the Great Pyramids were built by free people not slaves. The first strikes were torch lit events back in 1160-1153 B.C. during the reigns of Rameses III and IV. Back then in Egypt, some people used straws to sip drinks cooled with ice from the mountains.
“Theodore Wertime has suggested that the principal cause of deforestation was the demands of ancient metallurgy.” The Bronze Age brought the chariot, warrior society, hammers, chisels, drills, pails, wire, safety pins, tweezers, and razors. Taoism lost to Confucianism because of Taoism’s anti-state outlook. Axial Age religions offered salvation at the price of freedom and self-sufficiency. “Buddhism was founded by a man who abandoned his wife and newborn child as obstacles to his spiritual progress.” The Gospel of Luke has many condemnations of the rich which made the church look silly being such a huge financial institution. Clocks became common after 1300 which really helped those in power enforce a more regulated existence. Margaret of Porete was burned at the stake for proposing the world might be rehabilitated “by giving nature what it demands.” Had she said, “I freaking despise nature” and then spat, nothing would have happened. Printing takes hold. “Illiterates become subordinates.” Humanists stressed individualism, sanctioned the subjugation of women and stayed silent on colonialism. Renaissance humanists wanted to wipe out the Muslims through renewed crusades. Humanist Petrarch was “venomous” toward Muslims. Montaigne, the darling of intellectuals when I was in college, “denied that commoners and women could engage in the search for self-knowledge.” In 1582 the Gregorian calendar is introduced. Voltaire, who I was also taught to revere in college, said, “better not teach peasants how to read; someone had to plow the fields.” What a douchebag; at least he opposed slavery.
Enclosure in England between 1760 and 1844 removed six million acres from the British people. You had to get the British poor somehow working in those miserable factories. William Morris spoke long ago of his open hatred for “modern civilization.”
U.S. liberals still post rhapsodic about the musical Hamilton, about a guy who argued that “children were better off in mills than at home or in school.” That odious comment would have made a lovely song in the musical. We were all taught WWI began with the assassination of Archduke Fran Ferdinand; what no one taught us is that six weeks occurred before the world responded with war. After his death, the stock market barely responded. The elites knew better than to start a war, they had read the six volume The Future of War (1889) which explained that future wars would be nasty ones in the trenches (like the Civil War, Crimean and Russo-Japanese War). The elites sat still before after three assassinations happened in Russia (1911) Spain (1912) and Greece (1913), so why get their panties in a twist only after Ferdinand?
Modernity removed our sense of place and replaced it with what Pico Iyer calls “airport culture” – “rootless, urban, homogenized, identical”. This was a good book I was glad to read, a critique of civilization with cool different facts from the other 32 anti-civ books I’m reviewing this year.
Uruk in 2700 B.P.E. had “a double-ring wall six miles long, fortified by 900 towers.” Once you had agriculture, you had to have protection. Sam Lilley sees pottery as the first step towards the modern production factory. By 2200 B.C. there was a weaving factory in Guabba which employed over 6,000 workers, mostly women and children. Irrigation brought up saltwater leading to abandonment of cities. In 2010, we found out that the Great Pyramids were built by free people not slaves. The first strikes were torch lit events back in 1160-1153 B.C. during the reigns of Rameses III and IV. Back then in Egypt, some people used straws to sip drinks cooled with ice from the mountains.
“Theodore Wertime has suggested that the principal cause of deforestation was the demands of ancient metallurgy.” The Bronze Age brought the chariot, warrior society, hammers, chisels, drills, pails, wire, safety pins, tweezers, and razors. Taoism lost to Confucianism because of Taoism’s anti-state outlook. Axial Age religions offered salvation at the price of freedom and self-sufficiency. “Buddhism was founded by a man who abandoned his wife and newborn child as obstacles to his spiritual progress.” The Gospel of Luke has many condemnations of the rich which made the church look silly being such a huge financial institution. Clocks became common after 1300 which really helped those in power enforce a more regulated existence. Margaret of Porete was burned at the stake for proposing the world might be rehabilitated “by giving nature what it demands.” Had she said, “I freaking despise nature” and then spat, nothing would have happened. Printing takes hold. “Illiterates become subordinates.” Humanists stressed individualism, sanctioned the subjugation of women and stayed silent on colonialism. Renaissance humanists wanted to wipe out the Muslims through renewed crusades. Humanist Petrarch was “venomous” toward Muslims. Montaigne, the darling of intellectuals when I was in college, “denied that commoners and women could engage in the search for self-knowledge.” In 1582 the Gregorian calendar is introduced. Voltaire, who I was also taught to revere in college, said, “better not teach peasants how to read; someone had to plow the fields.” What a douchebag; at least he opposed slavery.
Enclosure in England between 1760 and 1844 removed six million acres from the British people. You had to get the British poor somehow working in those miserable factories. William Morris spoke long ago of his open hatred for “modern civilization.”
U.S. liberals still post rhapsodic about the musical Hamilton, about a guy who argued that “children were better off in mills than at home or in school.” That odious comment would have made a lovely song in the musical. We were all taught WWI began with the assassination of Archduke Fran Ferdinand; what no one taught us is that six weeks occurred before the world responded with war. After his death, the stock market barely responded. The elites knew better than to start a war, they had read the six volume The Future of War (1889) which explained that future wars would be nasty ones in the trenches (like the Civil War, Crimean and Russo-Japanese War). The elites sat still before after three assassinations happened in Russia (1911) Spain (1912) and Greece (1913), so why get their panties in a twist only after Ferdinand?
Modernity removed our sense of place and replaced it with what Pico Iyer calls “airport culture” – “rootless, urban, homogenized, identical”. This was a good book I was glad to read, a critique of civilization with cool different facts from the other 32 anti-civ books I’m reviewing this year.
February 8, 2021
An excellent, very readable collection of essays that was both intriguing and depressing. This seemed to be a really good introduction to Zerzan’s anarcho-primitivist analysis on the evils of civilisation and technology. This will certainly ring some bells for those of us who are concerned about the death spiral we are stuck in, or even just wondering why there is so much misery and sadness in the most affluent and advanced moment in history. I really appreciated the focus on spontaneous resistance movements throughout history, with a chapter or two specifically on the Luddites. Even though I feel his answers are perhaps too utopian I am looking forward to digging deeper into his writing after reading this. Highly recommended.
August 17, 2020
Some very scalding takes on humanity’s collective mistakes over the years since agriculture emerged from pastoral times, snowballing into the urbanized, industrialized, globalized world we live in today and just how fucked we really are for it. Definitely further to the left than his friend Kaczynski, but his polemics hit pretty close to as hard.
April 25, 2025
Some parts I really enjoyed and agreed with, other parts I enjoyed and disagreed with. There was really only one chapter I didn't like. If I were an anthropology professor I would absolutely teach select chapters in my classes. Overall fun read for an archaeologist. I wouldn't recommend it to the laymen because there was a lot of jargon and theory talk but it was definitely worth the read for me and I'm sending it to an archaeologist friend of mine to get her take.
October 11, 2025
Civilization Itself is Our Curse
If you have ever had doubts about the quality of modern life you will find the explanation here.
If you have ever experienced nostalgia for a simpler life, you will discover why in this book.
If you ever imagined that life should be more than your "job" and cheap possessions, this will explain why.
If you feel overwhelmed and brainwashed by symbols, logos, media, and endless linguistic gymnatics, this will clarify why.
If you have ever had doubts about the quality of modern life you will find the explanation here.
If you have ever experienced nostalgia for a simpler life, you will discover why in this book.
If you ever imagined that life should be more than your "job" and cheap possessions, this will explain why.
If you feel overwhelmed and brainwashed by symbols, logos, media, and endless linguistic gymnatics, this will clarify why.
October 28, 2020
Brilliant; chilling erudite and illuminating.
November 29, 2021
Zerzan’s tracing of civilization’s effects on humanity is meticulous, and his critiques and criticisms of its usefulness in our world are thought-provoking.
April 17, 2025
This book definitely challenged me to think deeply about how we got to here and now and what it means to partake in the society. This was my first foray into anarch primitivism and I am intrigued to learn more from all sides. I learned so much and was mostly reminded how little I do know. It's cool to push oneself as a reader sometimes. And still there's so much to learn.
November 3, 2021
A lot of people blame the industrial revolution for the evils of modernity, but Zerzan shows that the roots are in civilization itself. Maybe a little romantic about pre-civilized human society, but the book makes a compelling argument against everything created since the Neolithic.
January 16, 2023
Maybe not correct about everything but still a blast to read
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews