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.
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"An intelligent disquiet runs through these pages."--New York Times Book Review
"A creative and compelling synthesis of ideas, Smail's book provides an engaging and invigorating analysis of our history."--Science (Aaas)
"A provocative thesis. . . . Radically rethinks the relationship between biology and culture."--London Review of Books
"Relax and enjoy. It's a good read, and it makes you think."--New Scientist
"[An] intriguing little book."--American Scientist
From the Inside Flap
"This is surely a new paradigm for the study of history that will be regarded as revolutionary but which is also well justified. To my knowledge, no other book integrates the study of human history with principles of biological and cultural evolution on such an ambitious scale."--David Sloan Wilson, author of Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion and the Nature of Society
"This is one of the most exciting books I've read in years. It is so accessible, so groundbreaking, so stimulating, so important that I imagine the next generation of historians will be deeply influenced by what Smail has to say here. Simply dazzling."--Lynn Hunt, author of Inventing Human Rights
"This is one of the most exciting books I've read in years. It is so accessible, so groundbreaking, so stimulating, so important that I imagine the next generation of historians will be deeply influenced by what Smail has to say here. Simply dazzling."--Lynn Hunt, author of Inventing Human Rights
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72 of 74 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a fairly short book that Harvard professor of history Daniel Smail describes as a series of connected essays. It is essentially an argument to include all of human history, not just written history, in academic survey courses and textbooks. Most of the book is an interesting historiographical survey of how historians essentially ignore "pre-history"; the problems with periodization; and a post-modern rejection of Christian Universal History metanarratives which are stealthily still lurking in much of western secular historiography to this day.
Smail suggests using evolution as a new approach - one idea, he suggests, is that changes in brain chemistry, from external and internal forces, play a role in shaping human history. For example the widespread adoption of caffeine in Europe in the 17th century altered Europeans brain chemistry and thus the track of history. Similar investigations could be done with "pre-historic" periods. Smail doesn't go into many specifics, this is a concept book about how to approach history, not a definitive scientific analysis or conclusion - it is part of the larger ongoing discussions on how the ideas of evolution can be applied scientifically to the humanities (history, literature, etc) . Overall I was intellectually stimulated throughout and greatly enjoyed the ideas and perspectives, Smail is well versed in western historiography and the philosophy of history. Even if you are not convinced by the titles premise (almost a sort of hook), discussed in only one chapter, there is a lot to learn in this short but pithy work.
Smail suggests using evolution as a new approach - one idea, he suggests, is that changes in brain chemistry, from external and internal forces, play a role in shaping human history. For example the widespread adoption of caffeine in Europe in the 17th century altered Europeans brain chemistry and thus the track of history. Similar investigations could be done with "pre-historic" periods. Smail doesn't go into many specifics, this is a concept book about how to approach history, not a definitive scientific analysis or conclusion - it is part of the larger ongoing discussions on how the ideas of evolution can be applied scientifically to the humanities (history, literature, etc) . Overall I was intellectually stimulated throughout and greatly enjoyed the ideas and perspectives, Smail is well versed in western historiography and the philosophy of history. Even if you are not convinced by the titles premise (almost a sort of hook), discussed in only one chapter, there is a lot to learn in this short but pithy work.
51 of 52 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
History has addressed a number of Big Questions through the years. As Daniel Smail notes, however, the biggest one has been "Where to begin?" For centuries, the answer seemed simple: the "Creation". Scholars in Christian Europe were able to begin history with the couple in Eden, building from that well-defined starting point. Later, the historians "guild" shifted their foundation. The result was a mélange of opening chapters, ranging from the founding of "civilisation", through the beginning of writing to particular societies such as the Greeks, Sumerians or Egypt. Smail dismisses all of these as short-sighted. He wants a realistic view of history to encompass "Deep Time". In this enthralling book, he urges historians to take up some science and rewrite history to encompass the early days of humanity.
As a professor of history, Smail deftly summarises the various schools of historiography. Early history is dubbed "sacred" for its reliance on Biblical origins. Time was fixed and man's place in those histories was determined. This type persisted until "the bottom dropped out of time" with the advent of geology, paleontology and particularly, biology demonstrating the inadequacy of sacred history. Disputes arose, he notes, during the 19th Century carrying through well into the 20th Century, over the "starting point". Providing many examples, he laments that even as it became clear that human origins extended far back in time, history texts failed to acknowledge early human input worthy of notice. In some cases the view of "pre-historic" humanity even portrayed them as solitary wanderers on the landscape. Agriculture, in this view, was the foundation of human communities, hence discernible history.... Read more ›
As a professor of history, Smail deftly summarises the various schools of historiography. Early history is dubbed "sacred" for its reliance on Biblical origins. Time was fixed and man's place in those histories was determined. This type persisted until "the bottom dropped out of time" with the advent of geology, paleontology and particularly, biology demonstrating the inadequacy of sacred history. Disputes arose, he notes, during the 19th Century carrying through well into the 20th Century, over the "starting point". Providing many examples, he laments that even as it became clear that human origins extended far back in time, history texts failed to acknowledge early human input worthy of notice. In some cases the view of "pre-historic" humanity even portrayed them as solitary wanderers on the landscape. Agriculture, in this view, was the foundation of human communities, hence discernible history.... Read more ›
32 of 34 people found the following review helpful
By Roger Sweeny
Format:Hardcover
This is kind of a bipolar book. The first three quarters criticizes the way other people do history or social science. Smail holds everyone to extremely high standards and finds everyone deficient. The end of the book is a first cut at a history he wants to see, a history that focuses on the human brain. After all, everything humans do is caused by their brains. Here, he is impressionistic and unrigorous. The Smail of the first part would give this book one star. The Smail of the end would give it five. I give it three.
Smail argues that people's brains cause them to act so as to achieve certain levels of chemicals in the brain. Two centuries ago, the English utilitarians tried to found a social science on something similar. People, said Jeremy Bentham and James Mill, try to achieve pleasure and avoid pain. To the extent they do, they experience "utility." The idea of trying to maximize utility became a part of what was then called political economy. Eventually, it became conventional wisdom that a pleasure/pain principle was too simple, so economists redefined utility to mean preference, and dropped the question of where these preferences come from. If neurology can put some flesh back on the bones of "preference," it may indeed form a basis for a better economics and history.
Smail likes the metaphor of a "drug." The stresses of modern life cause undesired levels of some brain chemicals. Some people shop to change the levels to more desired ones. Thus, shopping is a drug. Similarly, in medieval times, attendance at church services--experiencing the communal ritual, the smoke, etc.--acted to change brain chemicals in desired ways.... Read more ›
Smail argues that people's brains cause them to act so as to achieve certain levels of chemicals in the brain. Two centuries ago, the English utilitarians tried to found a social science on something similar. People, said Jeremy Bentham and James Mill, try to achieve pleasure and avoid pain. To the extent they do, they experience "utility." The idea of trying to maximize utility became a part of what was then called political economy. Eventually, it became conventional wisdom that a pleasure/pain principle was too simple, so economists redefined utility to mean preference, and dropped the question of where these preferences come from. If neurology can put some flesh back on the bones of "preference," it may indeed form a basis for a better economics and history.
Smail likes the metaphor of a "drug." The stresses of modern life cause undesired levels of some brain chemicals. Some people shop to change the levels to more desired ones. Thus, shopping is a drug. Similarly, in medieval times, attendance at church services--experiencing the communal ritual, the smoke, etc.--acted to change brain chemicals in desired ways.... Read more ›
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Clear, convincing, and important
First-rate historiography. A clear, convincing, and important argument for abandoning the idea that historians must begin their accounts of human history with the earliest... Read more
Published 11 days ago by BW
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great
This is a great introduction to a hot topic in historiography. History did not begin with written chronicles, but with the traces that humans have always left in our passage... Read more
Published 17 days ago by raymond Obermayr
3.0 out of 5 stars
Deep history?
Daniel Lord Smail is a professional historian who has written a book about neuroscience, historiography, history, and psychology. Read more
Published on June 5, 2011 by G.X. Larson
5.0 out of 5 stars
good history
Good history ought to support, and be supported by, good science and good philosophy. This book does exactly that. Read more
Published on January 30, 2011 by Lester M. Stacey
1.0 out of 5 stars
An incomplete history of history
The concept of human history is tricky. Specifically, when does it start? Geologic time obviously doesn't work, but recorded history is far too abbreviated given the span of... Read more
Published on July 14, 2009 by VampireCowboy
4.0 out of 5 stars
A different look at history
The idea of "deep history" seems to be that of an unbroken, scientifically-based, narrative moving from the dawn of time to the present. Read more
Published on June 29, 2009 by Rick W
2.0 out of 5 stars
A meandering first cut at deep history for historians
Daniel Lord Smail is a historian at Harvard University. He is perhaps motivated to write this book because his father, John R. W. Read more
Published on May 22, 2009 by Herbert Gintis
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing
You know how when some popular musician or movie star comments on a subject out of his field of expertise (say, on politics or some scientific field) and says something ridiculous... Read more
Published on December 14, 2008 by Jared B.
4.0 out of 5 stars
A prolegomena to neurohistory
In this highly interesting book, the author gives the first crack at what he has called `neurohistory'. Read more
Published on September 13, 2008 by Dr. Lee D. Carlson
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