Suzannah Rowntree’s Reviews > The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity > Status Update
Suzannah Rowntree
is 22% done
"Medieval peasants often found it much easier than medieval intellectuals to imagine a society of equals" - perhaps thanks to seasonal festivals like Twelfth Night, which preserved an overturning of social norms and made it possible to imagine a freer world.
After the bombastic time of the opening chapter, this book is becoming absolutely fascinating.
— 8 hours, 46 min ago
After the bombastic time of the opening chapter, this book is becoming absolutely fascinating.
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Suzannah Rowntree’s Previous Updates
Suzannah Rowntree
is 13% done
Okay but this stuff tracing Rousseau's influences to interactions between Native Americans and Jesuits in New France is extremely fascinating
— Apr 19, 2026 12:40AM
Suzannah Rowntree
is 3% done
So far this is polemical in a way that grates and stomps some important distinctions fairly flat, but also it's discussing interesting topics in interesting ways so I'll consume with a plentiful helping of salt. Anyway turns out Thomas Hobbes was a Civil-War-era royalist which sure does explain why he thought human life without autocratic government would be "nasty, brutish, and short".
— Apr 14, 2026 03:06AM
