Very interesting with more detailed information on hunter gatherer turning into an agrarian culture than anything else I have read so far. Fascinating details on how these city states were formed, how they were run and how they came and went throughout time.

As far as big history goes, this promised a lot and failed to deliver; so what if 'sedentism' predates the permanently sedentary, domesticated life of the citizen; the knowledge and scope of expertise of the author is very limited, sketchy at best and it shows; lots of speculation without the proper science to back up his claims. Please read the excellent works on the early days of humanity by the greats: [a:Yuval Noah Harari|395812|Yuval Noah Harari|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1546235045p2/395812.jpg] and [a:Jared Diamond|256|Jared Diamond|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1456487863p2/256.jpg].

It brought me some interesting perspectives with what is happening in the world today - Covid19.

The book presented in many ways the failures one crop farming and state-led life was not such a great thing for man. Sure we have all these awesome ancient cultures but they came at a heavy life loss especially for the non-1%.

Could there have been another option for man? I dunno. Thats a conversation I would love to have with someone else who has read the book.

I recommend this book definitely for conversation purposes especially the latter half of the book.