The impact of the writing of this book, that honestly reads more like an essay , is devastating. I know world history pretty thoroughly, and have rarely or never encountered such stunning ecological histories of some of the societies I respect, including the Stone Age, the Sumerians and the Romans. Dawson shows how from the outset in the cave period, man systematically destroyed his environment in a quest for better living. He shows that farming, far from being a convenient shift, was a crisis-driven necessity following the extinction of large meat animals caused by massive overhunting. The very first government, in Sumer, institutionalized systems of oppression of the people, militarization and conquest of neighbors, and destruction of the environment, turning fertile lands into deserts, that still exist today. This came along with Sumerian contributions of the wheel and the basis of organized trade and record-keeping. Later the Romans and their highly efficient world system turned most of the lands they occupied into deserts. You will never look at history and humankind the same way again after reading this book
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