Patrick Wyman's deep-diving podcast, "Tides of History" has been covering the rise of humanity from its very origins through the complete habitation of the planet for the past year. "Against the Grain" by James C. Scott is used as a reference point in this grand narrative whose concept really clicked with me.

"Against the Grains" central argument is that the creation of the state radically changed and brought to ruin the way humanity had lived for millennia. The book displayed this theory in a direct way with a ton of examples. I honestly buy the argument and can see the ripples of this radical change in our way of living today.

However, it took me forever to finish this book. Maybe it's because I listened to this podcast far quicker than I read, but I found this argument had reached its conclusion about halfway through its 256 pages. Those remaining pages continued the natural progression of the argument, laying out many well-researched examples further on the point. But for me, I no longer needed that. If you are doing a research-oriented or extremely thorough deep dive, then I give this book a must-read recommendation. However, if you are like me and more of just a casual undereducated reader, then I would still recommend it, but I would recommend the podcast "Tides of History" more.

Either way, it is fascinating to continue to look back and see the ripples of this change and wonder what we have lost along the way.