Comments on: Book review – Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States

By: Book review – Living on Earth: Life, Consciousness and the Making of the Natural World | The Inquisitive Biologist

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 12:58:14 +0000

[…] existence to settled societies (in the process giving nods to both Graeber & Wengrow and James Scott). Another example is how he delves into the nature of nervous systems, how they are about more than […]

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By: Book review – The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity | The Inquisitive Biologist

Wed, 13 Jul 2022 09:29:53 +0000

[…] pristine areas untouched by human hands. In the Fertile Crescent of Mesopotamia, people practised the labour-light variant of flood-retreat agriculture on seasonally flooded wetlands, while hunting and foraging at other times. Experiments show that […]

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By: Book review – Being a Human: Adventures in 40,000 Years of Consciousness | The Inquisitive Biologist

Mon, 17 Jan 2022 11:55:47 +0000

[…] such as Harari and Diamond have expounded. He gives a serviceable summary of some points raised in Against the Grain; e.g. how farming was slow to catch on, and how it seems to have spread by farmers pushing out […]

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By: Book review – Natural: The Seductive Myth of Nature’s Goodness | The Inquisitive Biologist

Mon, 20 Jul 2020 16:10:24 +0000

[…] that doubled up as mother nature’s pharmacy. Did our ancestors have it better? Some say yes, others say no. Levinovitz thinks the question is impossible to answer one way or another and […]

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By: Book review – Origins: How the Earth Made Us | The Inquisitive Biologist

Book review – Origins: How the Earth Made Us | The Inquisitive Biologist — Sun, 26 May 2019 15:19:37 +0000

[…] is perhaps more familiar territory as he discusses the rise of agriculture (see also my review of Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States for some nuanced counterpoints to the standard narrative) and livestock husbandry. Here he reaches […]

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By: Book review – The Human Swarm: How Our Societies Arise, Thrive, and Fall | The Inquisitive Biologist

Tue, 07 May 2019 13:11:33 +0000

[…] wonderfully named pant-hoot still seen in chimpanzees and bonobos). As Scott also highlighted in Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States, the progression from nomadic hunter-gatherers to settled farmers was not neat and linear, with […]

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By: Book review – Tropical Forests in Prehistory, History, and Modernity | The Inquisitive Biologist

Mon, 01 Apr 2019 12:45:36 +0000

[…] was a small part of a larger portfolio of different strategies to make a living (see my review of Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States), but he did not specifically mention the possible role of tropical rainforests, focusing instead […]

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By: Kitkat

Kitkat — Wed, 13 Feb 2019 18:43:15 +0000

No mention of the state’s role in security–mitigating and managing violence-seems rather glaring…

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By: Book review – Climate Change and the Health of Nations: Famines, Fevers, and the Fate of Populations | The Inquisitive Biologist

Wed, 23 Jan 2019 09:27:57 +0000

[…] a short history of the rise of humans and the beginning of agriculture (see also my review of Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States). McMichael speaks of the Faustian bargain we unwittingly made by transitioning from nomadism to […]

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By: Book review – Dinner with Darwin: Food, Drink, and Evolution | The Inquisitive Biologist

Thu, 13 Sep 2018 22:25:22 +0000

[…] in what is now the Middle East, something that was covered more in-depth in my recent review of Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States. We are also introduced to the seed collection efforts of Russian scientist Nikolai Ivanovich […]

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