What do you think?
Rate this book
On Deep History and the Brain
When does history begin? What characterizes it? This brilliant and beautifully written book dissolves the logic of a beginning based on writing, civilization, or historical consciousness and offers a model for a history that escapes the continuing grip of the Judeo-Christian time frame. Daniel Lord Smail argues that in the wake of the Decade of the Brain and the best-selling historical work of scientists like Jared Diamond, the time has come for fundamentally new ways of thinking about our past. He shows how recent work in evolution and paleohistory makes it possible to join the deep past with the recent past and abandon, once and for all, the idea of prehistory. Making an enormous literature accessible to the general reader, he lays out a bold new case for bringing neuroscience and neurobiology into the realm of history.
286 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
29 people are currently reading
743 people want to read
About the author
Daniel Lord Smail
12 books9 followersDaniel Lord Smail is a professor of history at Harvard University.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
August 14, 2017
As the title kind of intimates, On Deep History and the Brain is a short prospectus for two (related but distinct) historical projects: deep history (extending history into "prehistory") and neurohistory (history through the lens of neurochemistry). The first 100 pages focuses not on deep history itself, but the intellectual hangups that have kept it from being the norm. It's a historiography of the history/prehistory divide, tracing it from Biblical truth to rearguard action against geological revealed deep time and evolution to the lingering bias built into the discipline against methods not focused on written records and especially the subjects that demand such methods.
He builds this story in more detail than he perhaps needed to, but on the other hand, I'm constantly incredulous about this stuff, so maybe it is necessary. From the point of view of a modern academic, the premises of deep history are insultingly obvious: humans are animals subject to ecological rules, and the flow of history follows the logic imposed by those limitations, locating causal factors in blindly selected adaptations to changing conditions rather than intentional design and leadership. In a sense, it can't help but feel like Smail is ego-stroking us for the blessing of being born in the enlightened present, though it isn't framed that way of course. I'm just constantly astonished at how long the great man narrative approach to history persisted (he calls it the Bad King John approach, which was new to me), how long they clung to the specter of free will and intentionality. I've been reticent about really believing this idea was widespread for so long, since it reflects to poorly on so many historians, but Smail establishes a pretty solid case here.
In breaking down the barrier to deep history (ie, abolishing the concept of "prehistory"), he also eloquently makes the case for a history throughout time based on a broader body of evidence, focused on processes that may not be apparent to historical actors. Of course, this is a less pressing point, and it's more preaching to the choir than advocating deep history, perhaps. But it's still fun. Instead of giving an example, Smail details a line of research based on the eco-evolutionary logic of deep history that gives an understudied handle stretching across the divide into the deep past: neurochemistry.
Smail's idea of neurohistory walks a weird line between insight and tautology. The idea is that material circumstances and, especially, cultural patterns, shape our neurochemistry in discernible ways. Men in the South have measurably higher stress responses to offense due to the masculinity norms they were raised with. Women in Victorian England were, he speculates, physiologically more prone to fainting than women in other time periods, because their socialization was written in their endocrine system. That idea appeals to me, though extending it into history risks a lot of misleading analogy and speculation.
But his more general point is that most economic activity is driven by goods and activities that modulate human neurochemistry. I think it takes a careful thinker, and perhaps a particular case, for this to be meaningfully different from "people do things because they feel good." After all, the idea that some human activities are pleasurable but not necessarily adaptive is nothing new. This is maybe a bit unfair; unpacking the ways that social change is driven by new opportunities in mood-altering might offer more insights in the particulars than the observation that people do it reveals in general. It might, though Smail (perhaps in his intense aversion to evolutionary psychology?) doesn't make much of this, offer a way to chain histories of production to the evolutionary history of the human species (or its domesticated partners).
I'm a big fan of the way of thinking Smail advocates here, and he makes the case eloquently and concisely. It's perhaps not necessary reading if you're already convinced, though.
He builds this story in more detail than he perhaps needed to, but on the other hand, I'm constantly incredulous about this stuff, so maybe it is necessary. From the point of view of a modern academic, the premises of deep history are insultingly obvious: humans are animals subject to ecological rules, and the flow of history follows the logic imposed by those limitations, locating causal factors in blindly selected adaptations to changing conditions rather than intentional design and leadership. In a sense, it can't help but feel like Smail is ego-stroking us for the blessing of being born in the enlightened present, though it isn't framed that way of course. I'm just constantly astonished at how long the great man narrative approach to history persisted (he calls it the Bad King John approach, which was new to me), how long they clung to the specter of free will and intentionality. I've been reticent about really believing this idea was widespread for so long, since it reflects to poorly on so many historians, but Smail establishes a pretty solid case here.
In breaking down the barrier to deep history (ie, abolishing the concept of "prehistory"), he also eloquently makes the case for a history throughout time based on a broader body of evidence, focused on processes that may not be apparent to historical actors. Of course, this is a less pressing point, and it's more preaching to the choir than advocating deep history, perhaps. But it's still fun. Instead of giving an example, Smail details a line of research based on the eco-evolutionary logic of deep history that gives an understudied handle stretching across the divide into the deep past: neurochemistry.
Smail's idea of neurohistory walks a weird line between insight and tautology. The idea is that material circumstances and, especially, cultural patterns, shape our neurochemistry in discernible ways. Men in the South have measurably higher stress responses to offense due to the masculinity norms they were raised with. Women in Victorian England were, he speculates, physiologically more prone to fainting than women in other time periods, because their socialization was written in their endocrine system. That idea appeals to me, though extending it into history risks a lot of misleading analogy and speculation.
But his more general point is that most economic activity is driven by goods and activities that modulate human neurochemistry. I think it takes a careful thinker, and perhaps a particular case, for this to be meaningfully different from "people do things because they feel good." After all, the idea that some human activities are pleasurable but not necessarily adaptive is nothing new. This is maybe a bit unfair; unpacking the ways that social change is driven by new opportunities in mood-altering might offer more insights in the particulars than the observation that people do it reveals in general. It might, though Smail (perhaps in his intense aversion to evolutionary psychology?) doesn't make much of this, offer a way to chain histories of production to the evolutionary history of the human species (or its domesticated partners).
I'm a big fan of the way of thinking Smail advocates here, and he makes the case eloquently and concisely. It's perhaps not necessary reading if you're already convinced, though.
September 6, 2009
"Thus, the mere knowledge that the things we do and see and experience have mood-altering effects, that culture impinges on psychology (and vice versa), should encourage us to ask why. The answer to that question takes us into the deep past, for the brain has a history, and that history is a deep history as old as humanity itself – or even older. All animals, after all, engage in mood-altering activities. They consume fermented fruit and nibble catnip. They cuddle and groom and play. Some domestic cats and perhaps most golden retrievers have been bred to enjoy the sensation of being stroked and tickled behind the ears; they are, in a sense, addicted to the wash of oxytocin or dopamine or whatever it is that is generated by patting. Like other primates, humans also enjoy being groomed, though, as with all such things, some like ti more than others. Like bonobos, we engage in the pleasures and bonding experience of recreational sex. But to these behaviors Paleolithic human societies added a new range of mood-altering practices, including song, dance, ritual, and a variety of mood-altering substances, often consumed in the context of rituals. The range of mood-altering substances and practices continued to grow in the wake of the agricultural revolution; in the past few centuries, it has expanded at a prodigious pace as the devices became available to an ever-wider spectrum of the population. Thanks to the operations of a consumer economy, we are now surrounded by a dizzying array of practices that stimulate the production and circulation of our own chemical messengers. Think of the instant access to pornography and virtual sex now available on the Internet. Thinks of the Hollywood thriller that leaves an audience breathless, disoriented, with skin tingling and minds repeatedly shocked by massive doses of epinephrine, norepinephrine, and the like. Think of the shopping mall that disorients shoppers and induces the production of panic-inducing hormones, a body-state subsequently eased through the act of purchase. Shopping itself has become mildly addictive for the temporary state of euphoria it generates in some. And this is to say nothing about the foods and drugs, both legal and illegal, that deliver a steady dose of caffeine or opiods or stimulate the human endocrine to produce its own array of neurochemicals. The chords, the melodies, have indeed changed over the course of human history." (160-61)
December 18, 2012
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.
June 9, 2012
This little book deserves to have a broad readership across all disciplines. It arises from reflections on the current practice of history and the history of history. As such it is a polemical thinking piece rather than a work of history itself, urging an engagement with ideas from neuroscience, archaeology and linguistics. Deep History is one of those little books that marks a tide change in thinking. Highly recommended.
July 29, 2019
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.
June 2, 2015
For an academic history book, this one if fairly accessible, especially if you can get through the first several chapters. Melding recent advances in neurobiology, with a 'long view' of history (deep history), as well as cultural anthropology, makes for an interesting read. "Watching pyramids sprout up in Egypt and Mesoamerica is like contemplating the emergence of the saber-toothed cat in both marsupial and placental lineages, separated though they were by large oceans and hundreds of millions of years of biological evolution. We celebrate the diversity of human civilizations, but it is the similarities that are the most startling, the thing that continually reminds us of our common humanity." p199
October 22, 2009
In this book, Daniel Smail has suggested that historians move beyond artificial beginnings and nationalist notions when writing their narratives. Instead, he has proposed that historians ought to look more into science (biology, neurology, psychology, etc.) and incorporate them in their historical writing. In other words, to get a fuller grasp on human nature, he argued, historians need to look deep into "human" history via science rather than just the traditional nation-based narratives and analyses.
August 28, 2010
When I first started this book a few years ago I couldn't get into it despite my interest in the topic in the title. But I brought it along to read with some other books on prehistory. I felt a bit impatient with the first part where he is arguing against the myopia of conventional history. After that I got into the topic and it followed and elaborated on ideas that I had just read in Renfrew's "Prehistory."
Just an excellent and thought-provoking essay on the long long history of our species.
Just an excellent and thought-provoking essay on the long long history of our species.
March 3, 2015
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.
May 1, 2022
There are a couple of interesting ideas here, but not enough to make the overall project successful.
The first part of the book discusses how historians have tended to put the early bounds of human history around 4000BC (or sometimes even much later) and treated earlier times as, at best, "prehistory." Mr. Smail traces this tendency in Western scholarship to religious creation stories and the counting of biblical generations and then later to the idea that you can't have history without writing so that there could be no true history before the time for which we have some sort of written record. I agree with Mr. Smail that there is no good reason to privilege writing in this way and that there are many ways beyond writing in both the pre- and post-writing eras that we can use to figure out what happened to whom, when, where and why. While this basic point about when history starts may seem obvious, Mr. Smail rightly points out that even contemporary writers of elementary textbooks and popular histories have a tendency to use language and metaphors that pull us back into the error of seeing the beginning of all history coinciding with biblical creation or the birth of writing.
The second part of the book explores how knowledge of how the brain works can help us to understand history both before and after the birth of writing. I found this part less persuasive. I agree that neuroscience has a place in historical investigation and reasoning. It can help to explain why things happened in a particular way and to develop theories of what actually happened in the face of ambiguous evidence. But Mr. Smail goes way beyond this, suggesting that behaviors that create chemical reactions in the brains of others and self-motivated actions that are intended to release desirable brain chemicals and to avoid unpleasant ones in our own brains, can be the basis for a grand theory of history that explains almost everything that has ever happened. He repeatedly backs off of grand claims, saying that this can only be used to show tendencies and that actual behavior is much more complex and circumstance specific, but he can't resist returning again and again to neuroscience as an overarching historical theory of everything. This has the same problem as other grand theories of history - Marxian, Freudian or geography driven theories; they all have some explanatory power and provide a lens that lets you see some truth, but they also all have limited value and quickly break down when you take them too seriously. I'm still a fan of Karl Popper's fine book The Poverty of Historicism where he makes a strong case that history is really just a story of muddling through. Mr. Smail sometimes leans in this direction, but can't resist giving too much explanatory power to his big idea.
I also wonder whether deep history as advocated by Mr. Smail is really even history at all. I acknowledge that quibbling over definitions is a waste of time and that every term has meanings around the edge that different reasonable people might choose to include or exclude from the definition. But I do think that history is fundamentally tied to human events and that human events by their nature have specific actors and locations in time and space. So when you start focusing on abstractions of neuroanatomy and how they drive human behavior as Mr. Smail does in the second half of the book, you may have identified a productive field of scholarship, but I hesitate to call it history.
The first part of the book discusses how historians have tended to put the early bounds of human history around 4000BC (or sometimes even much later) and treated earlier times as, at best, "prehistory." Mr. Smail traces this tendency in Western scholarship to religious creation stories and the counting of biblical generations and then later to the idea that you can't have history without writing so that there could be no true history before the time for which we have some sort of written record. I agree with Mr. Smail that there is no good reason to privilege writing in this way and that there are many ways beyond writing in both the pre- and post-writing eras that we can use to figure out what happened to whom, when, where and why. While this basic point about when history starts may seem obvious, Mr. Smail rightly points out that even contemporary writers of elementary textbooks and popular histories have a tendency to use language and metaphors that pull us back into the error of seeing the beginning of all history coinciding with biblical creation or the birth of writing.
The second part of the book explores how knowledge of how the brain works can help us to understand history both before and after the birth of writing. I found this part less persuasive. I agree that neuroscience has a place in historical investigation and reasoning. It can help to explain why things happened in a particular way and to develop theories of what actually happened in the face of ambiguous evidence. But Mr. Smail goes way beyond this, suggesting that behaviors that create chemical reactions in the brains of others and self-motivated actions that are intended to release desirable brain chemicals and to avoid unpleasant ones in our own brains, can be the basis for a grand theory of history that explains almost everything that has ever happened. He repeatedly backs off of grand claims, saying that this can only be used to show tendencies and that actual behavior is much more complex and circumstance specific, but he can't resist returning again and again to neuroscience as an overarching historical theory of everything. This has the same problem as other grand theories of history - Marxian, Freudian or geography driven theories; they all have some explanatory power and provide a lens that lets you see some truth, but they also all have limited value and quickly break down when you take them too seriously. I'm still a fan of Karl Popper's fine book The Poverty of Historicism where he makes a strong case that history is really just a story of muddling through. Mr. Smail sometimes leans in this direction, but can't resist giving too much explanatory power to his big idea.
I also wonder whether deep history as advocated by Mr. Smail is really even history at all. I acknowledge that quibbling over definitions is a waste of time and that every term has meanings around the edge that different reasonable people might choose to include or exclude from the definition. But I do think that history is fundamentally tied to human events and that human events by their nature have specific actors and locations in time and space. So when you start focusing on abstractions of neuroanatomy and how they drive human behavior as Mr. Smail does in the second half of the book, you may have identified a productive field of scholarship, but I hesitate to call it history.
January 2, 2026
This book has two parts, one answering the other. Historians have been reluctant to incorporate the very distant past into our world histories and our curricula for a bunch of bad reasons, but also for one or two good ones; namely, that there are very few visible institutions, practices, or still existing things that span the Paleolithic, the Neolithic, and the Postlithic. Smail proposes that we use the brain and the language of neuroscience to do this. Given how we have no way of accessing the hormone levels and neurological states of people in the past, all this seems to offer us is another set of metaphors, only these ones come with a whole set of eugenic and statis-quo affirming baggage. His perspective on psychotropy in society is very similar to how some more radical writters use the idea of generational trauma, so maybe there is something here after all.
Want to read
September 28, 2020Not on Libby
July 27, 2017
More of a 4.75 probably.
It wasn't exactly what I was expecting, and as other reviewers mentioned already(thought not with this term), there was a lot of historiography, especially in the early chapters. Before Smail dives into the importance of neurophysiology for history, particularly deep history, he firsts spends time deconstructing why the argument for a deep history even needs to be made. While others mentioned that it seems obvious that deep history is part of history, it is an unfortunate truth(even nearly 10 years later now) that many historians, anthropologists, and even the general public still ascribe to ideas of prehistory. Whether they realize it or not, those ideas circulate from an old belief in academia that history is written source-based discipline. There are many problematic aspects of a shortened chronology in history that Smail discusses in depth, including sacred histories and progress narratives that still infiltrate the field, but he spends the second half of the book doing some heavy explanation of evolutionary though over time, and eventually to current(for 2008) thought in neuroscience that can help expand the chronology of history. The neurohistory he proposes is even useful for any point in history, which was what initially drew me to the book anyways. While I have some reservations about the discussion of psychotropic mechanisms in the last chapter, this is no doubt going to be an important turning point in the field of history as it increasingly accepts the need for interdisciplinary work, specifically from the sciences, and especially from neuroscience which will no doubt infiltrate all of academia as we discover more. One aspect I would love to see more of is the recent work in evolutionary thought about storytelling and its importance to the way people view the world. It often seems that it should plug right into some of the aspects in the neurohistory and psychotropic chapters, and in fact is cited by those doing work on this concept. Unfortunately, as far as I know, work on storytelling from an evolutionary perspective is more recent that Smail's work here, so maybe an article or a presentation might be interesting to see to add that thought into his own ideas.
It wasn't exactly what I was expecting, and as other reviewers mentioned already(thought not with this term), there was a lot of historiography, especially in the early chapters. Before Smail dives into the importance of neurophysiology for history, particularly deep history, he firsts spends time deconstructing why the argument for a deep history even needs to be made. While others mentioned that it seems obvious that deep history is part of history, it is an unfortunate truth(even nearly 10 years later now) that many historians, anthropologists, and even the general public still ascribe to ideas of prehistory. Whether they realize it or not, those ideas circulate from an old belief in academia that history is written source-based discipline. There are many problematic aspects of a shortened chronology in history that Smail discusses in depth, including sacred histories and progress narratives that still infiltrate the field, but he spends the second half of the book doing some heavy explanation of evolutionary though over time, and eventually to current(for 2008) thought in neuroscience that can help expand the chronology of history. The neurohistory he proposes is even useful for any point in history, which was what initially drew me to the book anyways. While I have some reservations about the discussion of psychotropic mechanisms in the last chapter, this is no doubt going to be an important turning point in the field of history as it increasingly accepts the need for interdisciplinary work, specifically from the sciences, and especially from neuroscience which will no doubt infiltrate all of academia as we discover more. One aspect I would love to see more of is the recent work in evolutionary thought about storytelling and its importance to the way people view the world. It often seems that it should plug right into some of the aspects in the neurohistory and psychotropic chapters, and in fact is cited by those doing work on this concept. Unfortunately, as far as I know, work on storytelling from an evolutionary perspective is more recent that Smail's work here, so maybe an article or a presentation might be interesting to see to add that thought into his own ideas.
December 6, 2007
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]
April 18, 2021
How to summarise this book? It had so much to take in. In (very) short, the author seeks to ask/answer the point that “history” as we know it, usually Judao-Christian history starting with genesis approximately six thousand years ago, is inadequate. History doesn’t start with written narrative, it starts well before in Palaeolithic time with our ancestors the early Homos. Small seeks to marry history, cognitive evolution, biology and neurology to provide a wide overview of human history. How environment shaped our evolution, how evolving neurology shaped our societies and how aspects of our ancient biology are still evidenced today.
It is an academic book, quite complex in places, and not particularly light reading. I can’t say I followed everything fully but got the gist. I would’ve needed to read with a dictionary sometimes, or looking up some of the notable wo/men of science he quotes.
Overall fascinating and interesting when he speaks of psychotropic use and how they have changed us/caused various revolutions in neurology, biology or society. I’d just finished reading food of the gods by Terence McKenna so tied in nicely.
This is definitely a book I’ll be keeping and would like to read again to take more in.
It is an academic book, quite complex in places, and not particularly light reading. I can’t say I followed everything fully but got the gist. I would’ve needed to read with a dictionary sometimes, or looking up some of the notable wo/men of science he quotes.
Overall fascinating and interesting when he speaks of psychotropic use and how they have changed us/caused various revolutions in neurology, biology or society. I’d just finished reading food of the gods by Terence McKenna so tied in nicely.
This is definitely a book I’ll be keeping and would like to read again to take more in.
January 7, 2023
In On Deep History and the Brain, Smail looks to expand our understanding of continuity and discontinuity through the practice of deep history, the examination of the past holistically from the Paleolithic and Neolithic times to the present. Smail’s notion is a reaction to sacred history, enamored with the Garden of Eden and its secular cousin, history beginning with the advent of agriculture, the sedentary civilization, and the written word.
Smail writes that historians should embrace deep history as the primary structure of historical inquiry. One should search for the threads that tie a period to its prehistoric past beyond 5,500 years ago. To do so requires an interdisciplinary approach that “…joins the humanities, social sciences, with physical and life sciences.” The structure of historiography should remove the temporal boundaries between paleontologists, anthropologists, and archeologists. It should include biologists and neuroscientists. This incorporation would allow historians to transcend written records and broaden their definition of documentation. In a quest for their own deep history, Jared Diamond and William McNeil spin narratives of different disciplines to show the continuities of disease from prehistory to the present. In another example, a noted anthropologist argued that paleolithic societies had reverse dominance hierarchies; the people always formed a coalition against anyone who threatened to rise above the rest. The former example shows an environmental thread that runs through humanity, while the latter demonstrates the importance of looking beyond the written record. Demonstrating prehistory has something to teach, paleolithic reverse dominance hierarchy sounds suspiciously like balancing in the international relations theory of realism.
While drawing threads of continuity and discontinuity is Smail’s reasoned structure of deep history, the biology of the brain and the interaction with its surroundings is his foundation. “Although the themes of deep history can coalesce around any number of narrative threads, the one I propose in this book centers on biology, brain, and behavior.” The concept of neurohistory examines the relationships between the brain and culture as science proves brain structures and body chemicals predispose human behaviors. Humans have a universal capacity for emotion, but that does not mean a particular emotion will manifest in a given circumstance. While emotions do not dictate behavior, they provide a backdrop of feelings. The commonality of emotions across cultures begets a universal lens from which to analyze the past, yet those human “…predispositions and emotions are often plastic, not hardwired.” There is no single human nature because culture changes the brain. Culture is, therefore, a biological phenomenon, and any emotional predisposition is a probability.
Smail uses this neurohistorical foundation to develop a grand theory of historical explanation. Whether by chance or design, humans realized we could modulate our emotional state using mood-altering sets of practices, behaviors, and institutions that Smail calls psychotropic mechanisms. His grand theory is that human civilization aims at delivering these psychotropic mechanisms “…that alter and subvert human body chemistry.”
"Psychotropy is not necessarily all that friendly to a deep history.” In this statement, Smail is wrong; the thread of psychotropic mechanisms from prehistory to the present shows progress as an illusion, just as sacred history described the thread as God’s plan. My critique is Smail’s critique. The Epilogue of thirteen pages is frustrating and fails to show a cogent example of deep history in practice. Despite flaws, On Deep History and the Brain is a call to explore big history and pull historians away from the microscope of the last 5,500 years into a more extensive scope of study. Smail rightfully believes historiography can become more relevant by including additional disciplines, unmasking the continuities and discontinuities run from prehistory to the present.
Smail writes that historians should embrace deep history as the primary structure of historical inquiry. One should search for the threads that tie a period to its prehistoric past beyond 5,500 years ago. To do so requires an interdisciplinary approach that “…joins the humanities, social sciences, with physical and life sciences.” The structure of historiography should remove the temporal boundaries between paleontologists, anthropologists, and archeologists. It should include biologists and neuroscientists. This incorporation would allow historians to transcend written records and broaden their definition of documentation. In a quest for their own deep history, Jared Diamond and William McNeil spin narratives of different disciplines to show the continuities of disease from prehistory to the present. In another example, a noted anthropologist argued that paleolithic societies had reverse dominance hierarchies; the people always formed a coalition against anyone who threatened to rise above the rest. The former example shows an environmental thread that runs through humanity, while the latter demonstrates the importance of looking beyond the written record. Demonstrating prehistory has something to teach, paleolithic reverse dominance hierarchy sounds suspiciously like balancing in the international relations theory of realism.
While drawing threads of continuity and discontinuity is Smail’s reasoned structure of deep history, the biology of the brain and the interaction with its surroundings is his foundation. “Although the themes of deep history can coalesce around any number of narrative threads, the one I propose in this book centers on biology, brain, and behavior.” The concept of neurohistory examines the relationships between the brain and culture as science proves brain structures and body chemicals predispose human behaviors. Humans have a universal capacity for emotion, but that does not mean a particular emotion will manifest in a given circumstance. While emotions do not dictate behavior, they provide a backdrop of feelings. The commonality of emotions across cultures begets a universal lens from which to analyze the past, yet those human “…predispositions and emotions are often plastic, not hardwired.” There is no single human nature because culture changes the brain. Culture is, therefore, a biological phenomenon, and any emotional predisposition is a probability.
Smail uses this neurohistorical foundation to develop a grand theory of historical explanation. Whether by chance or design, humans realized we could modulate our emotional state using mood-altering sets of practices, behaviors, and institutions that Smail calls psychotropic mechanisms. His grand theory is that human civilization aims at delivering these psychotropic mechanisms “…that alter and subvert human body chemistry.”
"Psychotropy is not necessarily all that friendly to a deep history.” In this statement, Smail is wrong; the thread of psychotropic mechanisms from prehistory to the present shows progress as an illusion, just as sacred history described the thread as God’s plan. My critique is Smail’s critique. The Epilogue of thirteen pages is frustrating and fails to show a cogent example of deep history in practice. Despite flaws, On Deep History and the Brain is a call to explore big history and pull historians away from the microscope of the last 5,500 years into a more extensive scope of study. Smail rightfully believes historiography can become more relevant by including additional disciplines, unmasking the continuities and discontinuities run from prehistory to the present.
December 14, 2021
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.)
December 12, 2023
Therein lies the key to the treasure map for historical research to turn it from bites of antiquarian facts to general wisdom in a way that does not shoehorn the source material into a narrative that is for the narrative and not for truth. Smail writes in a manner reminiscent of Charles Darwin: scientific precision and efficiency, wastes no time of the reader, managing everything in just 200 pages, while at the same time not ignorant of the more playful ways of using language. Pleasant to read, and gives the reader wisdom, and not just the feeling of intelligence. Smail does not disrespect the reader's intelligence, and does not hesitate to not introduce a narrative where none warrants. Some might find it fragmentary. Some might appreciate not being lied to. No surprise this book is not a New York Times bestseller.
On the most general level this book is a book that introduces hard science to humanities scholars and introduces humanities scholarship to scientists, especially the non formal ones. How to avoid pop science. How to avoid History Channel kind of historical research.
On a more mundane level the book contributes an answer to the fundamental questions in philosophy of history. The answer is historical change is mostly based on psychotropic substances. Nicotine, alcohol, to more subtle ones like religion and politics, and most especially culture.
This book is also an argument in favor of big history and deep history. That is to set the beginning of historical research earlier than the invention of written language. This book does that in a way that avoids pop science and History Channel kind of history.
The level of synoptic thinking of Smail is to the level of classics like Harold Adams Innis. Books like Bias of Communication. (See the biography, Marginal Man.)
On the most general level this book is a book that introduces hard science to humanities scholars and introduces humanities scholarship to scientists, especially the non formal ones. How to avoid pop science. How to avoid History Channel kind of historical research.
On a more mundane level the book contributes an answer to the fundamental questions in philosophy of history. The answer is historical change is mostly based on psychotropic substances. Nicotine, alcohol, to more subtle ones like religion and politics, and most especially culture.
This book is also an argument in favor of big history and deep history. That is to set the beginning of historical research earlier than the invention of written language. This book does that in a way that avoids pop science and History Channel kind of history.
The level of synoptic thinking of Smail is to the level of classics like Harold Adams Innis. Books like Bias of Communication. (See the biography, Marginal Man.)
June 9, 2024
The majority of the book argues that historians have not explored the importance of the origins and development of the earliest men (e.g., the discovered “Lucy’s” of the pre ancient world). The book then discusses at length the nature and development of the neurobiology sciences and the important concepts about human life deriving therefrom. The discussion focuses on lessons concerning the 16th century and after. The book doesn’t detail how the neurobiology of the pre-ancients can be determined. Only in the epilogue does the book briefly discuss what available paleontology and similar sciences can teach about the nature of pre-ancient man, the beginnings of human like existence. Lots of interesting discussion but the thread of the book seems underdeveloped.
Note for the Kindle edition. There is no table of contents and the footnote links don’t work.
Note for the Kindle edition. There is no table of contents and the footnote links don’t work.
June 18, 2025
Smail's main argument is that the agricultural revolution ~7,000 years ago took advantage of neuropysiology already long since established in hominim evolution and exploited it, and the resulting increase in social complexity and stratification drove further development and entrenchment of certain behaviors. In a similar vein, he believes that the recent perceived progress or direction of history in the last 200 years is the result of the increasing access to/use of body-brain state modulating activities and substances, enabled particularly by an expanding consumer economy. Hard to prove him wrong there
Read
June 9, 2020Instead of concerning and justifying historical definition in anthropology, I'm more prone to seeing debate and limitation of neuro history, such as asking why is it so difficult for children to study history in class from an amygdala trusting issue, or how does stress play out shaping historical movements during a recession. Nuance ways of merging neuroscience would definitely help with supporting the value of this study. I do not deny the academic value of this book, but perhaps throwing oneself into the human-centric way of seeing history also limit the development of the field itself.
July 28, 2022
Based on the title, "On Deep History and the Brain," I foolishly expected this book to be about deep history and the brain. My mistake. This book is actually one historian telling other historians that they should write about deep history using evidence from brains. What a slog! Maybe the author eventually gets to the subject himself; I'll never know because I stopped reading about halfway through.
August 24, 2020
Interesting topics and solidly written, but far too academic in style. By that I mean it is very defensively written, bolstering the position and defending it from (academic) arguments before really getting to the point itself.
I think more could have been achieved by simply presenting the topics and focussing on explaining the implications and some of the more interesting rationales.
I think more could have been achieved by simply presenting the topics and focussing on explaining the implications and some of the more interesting rationales.
September 29, 2020
Explica qué es la deep history, el problema es que presenta como algo nuevo ideas que son viejísimas, aggiornadas gracias a la idea neurocientifica del cerebro como una computadora. Otra idea atrasadísima
November 13, 2024
It was an all right book until he started to make an argument about gender as a social construction
January 6, 2015
This book is far more about deep history than it is about the brain, and even more about the theory and practice of history generally than about deep history specifically. It reads very much like an academic article promoting a particular perspective on what history is and how it should be approached. Given that this was not what I was expecting nor looking for, I still appreciated it and even largely enjoyed it. The historical perspective on the study of history and the evolution of various dominant viewpoints was not exactly exciting, but it was exceptionally informative.
My takeaway was that history need not be limited to the writings of historians aware of an historical context or of civilization. Various pieces of written and non-written evidence can provide information as to how people lived and organized. If history is limited to civilization, then civilization can be broadened to include relatively more primitive social structures than the empires, kingdoms, and cities that so often are the focus. The brain then can also serve as an important piece of evidence, which when taken along with other archaeological evidence can allow us to form histories of the deep past.
My takeaway was that history need not be limited to the writings of historians aware of an historical context or of civilization. Various pieces of written and non-written evidence can provide information as to how people lived and organized. If history is limited to civilization, then civilization can be broadened to include relatively more primitive social structures than the empires, kingdoms, and cities that so often are the focus. The brain then can also serve as an important piece of evidence, which when taken along with other archaeological evidence can allow us to form histories of the deep past.
July 23, 2010
So this is a really interesting, if overly broad, view of how history should include far more on what was going on in the human family as long as 50,000 years ago. Cultural anthropology, sociobiology, neuropsychiatry and just plain sociology are all thrown up against the wall to see which arguments stick. The writer convinced me that we need to do more with the Olduvai Gorge and whatever we can deduce from the bones, DNA and garbage left behind by our earliest human ancestors in high school classes. However, I am not convinced that what the author calls "deep history" is necessarily a truly new or different discipline. Historians have always reveled in the idea that everything that has happened before this very minute has its place in history. The question is what evidence we can bring to bear and what conclusions we draw as a result. Loved the stuff on the evolution of agriculture producing a more sedentary life and thus higher fertility for women and thus rapid population growth and so on. This stuff is always fun to think about. The question is, what do we want students to take away from a curriculum based on the Paleolithic past?
December 14, 2012
This book brought many issues to my attention. I have read many books about the development of the brain, evolution, and sociology. I have also read many history books. However, I had, until this reading, been unaware of the abyss that separates the 'science' fields from the 'liberal arts' field. The intersection of historical method and anthropology are made clear and fascinating. Especially in the last chapter (touching on psychotropic drugs and activities) and the epilogue, I learned many interesting facts, became aware of many interesting topics, and came away with many new insights and ideas to cogitate on.
October 9, 2015
Gee, GoodReads is a helpful thing. I opened this book on my laptop Kindle. Couldn't tell at the start if I had read it. This listing tells me I did, July 2012. I like the beginning very much -- Daniel Lord Smail is a lovely clear writer. But I don't recall the whole book. My underlining (another helpful tool) reminds me that I did. I will update this -- it's not a review, it's just a note. October 4, 2015. / 10/10/15 - I grasped this book a lot more after a second reading 3 years later. Very stimulating, very clear.
August 7, 2008
"every Postlithic society has a characteristic psychotropic profile."
a bunch of nice ways of looking at history, but this is an introduction to Smail's much longer (and not yet completely) work which i think i'd prefer to read. the throwaway comments also put me off: it situates the book as part of the LRB talking circle, which is not what i'm after.
a bunch of nice ways of looking at history, but this is an introduction to Smail's much longer (and not yet completely) work which i think i'd prefer to read. the throwaway comments also put me off: it situates the book as part of the LRB talking circle, which is not what i'm after.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews