Status Updates From The Dawn of Everything: A N...

Interesting discussion about egalitarianism vs hierarchy in society. Bohem conclusion to his research about the first human societies land on the same conclusion other researchers arrived at before him: humans were egalitarian (“political”) animals, up to the discovery of agriculture. From that point on, inequality became a defining character of our society.

(re-read) David & David have a passage about 1/3 of the way into Chapter 3, Unfreezing the Ice Age where they overstate their case about the difference between individual & dialogic consciousness ("neuroscientists say we spend most of our time on autopilot, remaining conscious for in average 7 seconds"). the section is great otherwise, but I'm curious where this bit of (to my understanding) pop psychology came from?

FINALLY a general human history book that pays deep homage to indigenous wisdom, their accounts, and how Eurocentric narratives painted them as inferior people when their ways were (and are) inherently smarter and more humane in countless ways

Tons of info on tribes native to modern day Canada. Obsessed - David Graeber is my guy

Oh, in case it’s not obvious because I read Katie Kitamura’s Audition, I’m reading as many authors named David this year.

Why? No reason, tbh.

Ok, this book will surely destroy some key foundations of my understanding of recent history. I had no idea that interactions with the Americans before Enlightenment provided some (if not many, we will see as I read further) defining elements of such movement, one of the most momentous shifts in human history.
But, again, the goal of the book is to rethink human history, so…

I am on page 20 and I already love this book.
I was drawn to read it by the persistent critique of J. Diamond works and indeed some discussion about his vision of history is reported in the first chapter here.
To make it short: the book promises to change the way we understand human history and strongly criticizes modern authors who have proposed an old and not fact-based version of it (Diamond being among them).