The Dawn of Humanity

You can find all the chapters here. Read along with me.

The key questions to remember:

1. How did we end up this way?

2. How did other people live in the past?

3. What can we learn and do about it today?

Chapter 1 Farewell to Humanity’s Childhood

Chapter 2 Wicked Liberty

Chapter 3 Unfreezing the Ice Age

Chapter 4 Free People, the Origin of Cultures, and the Advent of Private Property

Chapter 5 Many Seasons Ago

• Part 1 Why there can be hierarchy and peace simultaneously

• Part 2 How did authority arise? When foragers were slavers

Chapter 6 Gardens of Adonis

Chapter 7 The Ecology of Freedom

Chapter 8 Imaginary Cities

• Part 1 Ukraine - Cities without central authorities

• Part 2 Early Mesopotamia - Freedom with scale and bureaucracy

• Part 3 Arslantepe, Anatolia and Uruk, Mesopotamia - End of egalitarianism

• Part 4 Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro in Indus Valley - Urban scale without authority

• Addendum Sayburc Tepe, Anatolia - Another egalitarian warrior settlement

• Part 5 Yellow River Valley, China - Early states or egalitarian settlements?

Chapter 9 Hiding in Plain Sight

• Part 1 Teotihuacan and Tlaxcalle in Mesoamerica - Autocracy vs. democracy

• Part 2 Postscript Tlaxcallan democracy before Hernán Cortés

Chapter 10 Why the State Has No Origin

• Part 1 What is a state? A better definition

• Part 2 An alternative definition for our modern state

Chapter 11 Full Circle

• Part 1 Hopewell, Ohio and Cahokia, Mississippi - Lessons from state to anti-state

• Part 2 The Osage of the Mississippi Fort Valley culture - From state to anti-state

Chapter 12 Conclusion

• Imagining History and Playful Changes