#JustFinished The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow.
This was a great book! Graeber and Wengrow integrate new archeological discoveries with anthropology and turn common belief on its side. In the same way that we used to think that evolution was a progressive march to new and improved species, we also thought that human development was on an upward arc to better things, with capitalism and
Democracy at the apex. But we learned that evolution is a collection of paths through a forest, sometimes heading where we want to go and sometimes not. Mutuations are random and not always more beneficial. Thus, species don't always progress with change.
They posit the same for human history. We haven't been heading in a direct line to where we are, and we don't have to stay here.
Today, I started reading How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr. I will admit that I'm a bit raw because my sister is in the hospital, but JFC, this is brutal!
Between what we weren't told as kids and details on things that we were sort of told, it's incredibly informative and interesting, but I can't stop crying about things in it.
Like, I never knew the Philippines had been an American territory.
Also, the Japanese in WWII... yeah, what a serious lesson in what happens when you dehumanize the people on the other side. I mean, sure, the NAZIs did it too, don't get me wrong, but I knew more about the European theater in WWII.