What do you think?
Rate this book
The Other Side of Eden
In this account of hunter/gatherer culture gleaned from years of living and hunting with the Inuits of the Arctic and the salmon-fishing tribes in the Canadian Northwest, the author reaches through everyday realities to reflect on the human condition.
400 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2002
17 people are currently reading
821 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 28 of 34 reviews
March 24, 2015
Hugh Brody is an English anthropologist. His parents were Jewish, and a number of their relatives died in the holocaust. Brody spent three decades in Canada hanging out with natives raised in hunter-gatherer societies. He worked for the government, and made documentary films.
Brody was raised in a nutjob civilization. He found the hunter-gatherers to be fascinating, because they had many virtues that were missing in modern society. The natives were kind and generous people. They radiated a profound love for the land of their birth, the home of their ancient ancestors. They deliberately had small families. Nobody gave orders to others. Everyone made their own decisions. Children were never disciplined.
He described his experiences in The Other Side of Eden, an excellent book. It examined the vast gulf between farming societies and hunter-gatherers — the broken and the free. In many ways, it was a predator-prey game. Wild people were useless obstacles to the insatiable hunger of the powerful empire builders and soil miners.
Conquered hunters had to be broken — turned into educated, Christian, English-speaking wageworkers. They had to be made dependent on a farm-based civilization, and this required turning their lives and minds inside out. It was different in India, where the British colonized people who were already farmers. These folks were allowed to keep their language, religion, and culture. The empire simply skimmed off a portion of the cash flow and became a morbidly obese parasite.
Brody’s family was Orthodox and Zionist. Later in life, his mind-altering experience with hunter-gatherers compelled him to reexamine his cultural programming. Genesis was essentially the creation story of western civilization. Eden was paradise, and Adam and Eve were provided with everything they needed. There was just one simple rule to follow, and they promptly disobeyed it. God threw them out.
They had two sons. Cain was a farmer, and Abel was a herder. God was not a vegetarian, and he loved Abel’s offerings of meat. Cain got jealous, and killed his brother. God condemned him to a life of endless toil. Eventually, God came to loath the troublesome humans, and decided to drown them all. Only a few were decent — Noah and his family were spared. God instructed the survivors to spread across the world, multiply, and subdue wildness.
So, the descendants of Noah were cursed to be wanderers, with no permanent home. Soil depletion, overbreeding, and belligerent neighbors forced them to keep moving. We think of hunters as being nomads, and farmers as sedentary, but the opposite is closer to the truth. Hunters tend to remain in the same territory for ages. Farmers commonly pack up and move when greener pastures become available.
Yes, hunters did eventually migrate to every corner of the planet, but the diaspora took more than 100,000 years. The new farming game grew explosively, and spread everywhere in a few thousand years. It was a huge and tragic change in the human journey, because it was thoroughly unsustainable, ravaged everything in its path, and created mobs of rootless broken people.
Over 200 years ago, Sir William Jones noticed that Sanskrit had similarities to other languages, like Latin, Greek, and German. Other linguists pursued this notion, and discovered many related languages. These are now known as the Indo-European family of languages, and they are spoken by half of humankind. They likely originated in the Fertile Crescent, and spread in all directions, as agriculture expanded.
Brody noted that Genesis made no mention of hunter-gatherers, it was a story told by the victors. This Hebrew creation myth was especially peculiar in that it described two-legs as being superior to all the other animals. In the stories of wild people, two-legs were often portrayed as the newbies — clumsy, comical, childlike critters who had much to learn from the older, wiser species.
The natives of northern Canada believed that they lived in the most beautiful place in the world. It gave them everything they needed. They treated their home with great reverence and respect. They were extremely lucky that their chilly Eden wasn’t prime real estate for agriculture. With the exception of horrific epidemics, they were relatively unmolested until the twentieth century.
But then, hell rumbled into Eden. Obnoxious missionaries told them they were wicked devil worshippers. The government built permanent settlements for them, with churches, schools, and stores. Their ancestral land became the property of the state. Loggers, ranchers, and miners moved in. A large region of Eden became a training ground for supersonic low altitude NATO bombers. By and by, the natives became fond of the pain killing magic of oblivion drinking. The good old days were over.
The residential schools were sadistically cruel. Children were taken from their families and sent far away. The kids were beaten for speaking their language. Many were malnourished or sexually abused. Many died. The primary goal of school was ethnocide — eliminating wild culture. They weren’t really creating improved people; they were breaking them, like ranchers break wild horses. The children were taught that they were primitive, and that everything they knew was wrong and stupid. After a year of English-only, they forgot their native tongue. It took years to relearn it, and many never did.
Control is the foundation of the farming mindset. Settlers ravage ancient forests with sharp axes and plows. They exterminate the wildlife and build sturdy fences. When Brody brought an Inuit elder to England, they took a drive in the country. Anaviapik was stunned, “It’s all built!” The original ecosystem was gone. It was unbelievable.
On one project, Brody hung out with alcoholic natives in an urban skid row. He noted that white drinkers took great pride in holding their liquor while drinking heavily. It was uncool to stumble around or slur words. Respectable boozers remained in control. Natives, on the other hand, let go. “There is a welcome loss of self, a flight into another state of being, another kind of person” — a spirit journey.
Control is impossible in the hunting world. Fish, birds, and game go where they wish, and do as they please. Weather happens and patterns change suddenly without warning. Hunter-gatherers must continually pay close attention to the land and its creatures. A living ecosystem is not a predictable machine. Intuition and improvisation are essential for survival. Folks must be open to many states of mind. Dreams provided important information. “If there is a trail to be discovered, the dreamer must find it.”
“It is artists, speculative scientists, and those whose journeys in life depend on not quite knowing the destination who are close to hunter-gatherers, who rely upon a hunter-gatherer mind.”
Brody was raised in a nutjob civilization. He found the hunter-gatherers to be fascinating, because they had many virtues that were missing in modern society. The natives were kind and generous people. They radiated a profound love for the land of their birth, the home of their ancient ancestors. They deliberately had small families. Nobody gave orders to others. Everyone made their own decisions. Children were never disciplined.
He described his experiences in The Other Side of Eden, an excellent book. It examined the vast gulf between farming societies and hunter-gatherers — the broken and the free. In many ways, it was a predator-prey game. Wild people were useless obstacles to the insatiable hunger of the powerful empire builders and soil miners.
Conquered hunters had to be broken — turned into educated, Christian, English-speaking wageworkers. They had to be made dependent on a farm-based civilization, and this required turning their lives and minds inside out. It was different in India, where the British colonized people who were already farmers. These folks were allowed to keep their language, religion, and culture. The empire simply skimmed off a portion of the cash flow and became a morbidly obese parasite.
Brody’s family was Orthodox and Zionist. Later in life, his mind-altering experience with hunter-gatherers compelled him to reexamine his cultural programming. Genesis was essentially the creation story of western civilization. Eden was paradise, and Adam and Eve were provided with everything they needed. There was just one simple rule to follow, and they promptly disobeyed it. God threw them out.
They had two sons. Cain was a farmer, and Abel was a herder. God was not a vegetarian, and he loved Abel’s offerings of meat. Cain got jealous, and killed his brother. God condemned him to a life of endless toil. Eventually, God came to loath the troublesome humans, and decided to drown them all. Only a few were decent — Noah and his family were spared. God instructed the survivors to spread across the world, multiply, and subdue wildness.
So, the descendants of Noah were cursed to be wanderers, with no permanent home. Soil depletion, overbreeding, and belligerent neighbors forced them to keep moving. We think of hunters as being nomads, and farmers as sedentary, but the opposite is closer to the truth. Hunters tend to remain in the same territory for ages. Farmers commonly pack up and move when greener pastures become available.
Yes, hunters did eventually migrate to every corner of the planet, but the diaspora took more than 100,000 years. The new farming game grew explosively, and spread everywhere in a few thousand years. It was a huge and tragic change in the human journey, because it was thoroughly unsustainable, ravaged everything in its path, and created mobs of rootless broken people.
Over 200 years ago, Sir William Jones noticed that Sanskrit had similarities to other languages, like Latin, Greek, and German. Other linguists pursued this notion, and discovered many related languages. These are now known as the Indo-European family of languages, and they are spoken by half of humankind. They likely originated in the Fertile Crescent, and spread in all directions, as agriculture expanded.
Brody noted that Genesis made no mention of hunter-gatherers, it was a story told by the victors. This Hebrew creation myth was especially peculiar in that it described two-legs as being superior to all the other animals. In the stories of wild people, two-legs were often portrayed as the newbies — clumsy, comical, childlike critters who had much to learn from the older, wiser species.
The natives of northern Canada believed that they lived in the most beautiful place in the world. It gave them everything they needed. They treated their home with great reverence and respect. They were extremely lucky that their chilly Eden wasn’t prime real estate for agriculture. With the exception of horrific epidemics, they were relatively unmolested until the twentieth century.
But then, hell rumbled into Eden. Obnoxious missionaries told them they were wicked devil worshippers. The government built permanent settlements for them, with churches, schools, and stores. Their ancestral land became the property of the state. Loggers, ranchers, and miners moved in. A large region of Eden became a training ground for supersonic low altitude NATO bombers. By and by, the natives became fond of the pain killing magic of oblivion drinking. The good old days were over.
The residential schools were sadistically cruel. Children were taken from their families and sent far away. The kids were beaten for speaking their language. Many were malnourished or sexually abused. Many died. The primary goal of school was ethnocide — eliminating wild culture. They weren’t really creating improved people; they were breaking them, like ranchers break wild horses. The children were taught that they were primitive, and that everything they knew was wrong and stupid. After a year of English-only, they forgot their native tongue. It took years to relearn it, and many never did.
Control is the foundation of the farming mindset. Settlers ravage ancient forests with sharp axes and plows. They exterminate the wildlife and build sturdy fences. When Brody brought an Inuit elder to England, they took a drive in the country. Anaviapik was stunned, “It’s all built!” The original ecosystem was gone. It was unbelievable.
On one project, Brody hung out with alcoholic natives in an urban skid row. He noted that white drinkers took great pride in holding their liquor while drinking heavily. It was uncool to stumble around or slur words. Respectable boozers remained in control. Natives, on the other hand, let go. “There is a welcome loss of self, a flight into another state of being, another kind of person” — a spirit journey.
Control is impossible in the hunting world. Fish, birds, and game go where they wish, and do as they please. Weather happens and patterns change suddenly without warning. Hunter-gatherers must continually pay close attention to the land and its creatures. A living ecosystem is not a predictable machine. Intuition and improvisation are essential for survival. Folks must be open to many states of mind. Dreams provided important information. “If there is a trail to be discovered, the dreamer must find it.”
“It is artists, speculative scientists, and those whose journeys in life depend on not quite knowing the destination who are close to hunter-gatherers, who rely upon a hunter-gatherer mind.”
August 11, 2007
Hey! Do you hate farmers? Then this book is for you.
Ok, let me put that more diplomatically. If you're anything like me, at some point you have looked at all the terrible problems with our society, throughout its history (ruined environment, wars, colonization, christianity, etc) and have wondered what the f__k is wrong with white people. Hugh Brody's certainyl has. And his answer is really interesting. He writes that the root of many of our problems may be with farming, and the way that farming organizes society.
In 'The Other Side of Eden' he retells the history of the world as an endless lopsided struggle between two kinds of societies. On one side are agricultural societies. On the other side are hunter-gatherer societies. The history of civilization has been the history of agricultural aggression toward and subjugation of hunting societies. He argues that it isn't actually hunting societies that are nomadic, and farming societies that are sedentary, but the reverse! Farming societies are nomadic, and hunting tribes are sedentary! I won't say any more, 'cause I could just go on and on and on.
An amazing, original, courageous piece of writing. Few books really have the power to change the way you think about the world. This one just might.
Ok, let me put that more diplomatically. If you're anything like me, at some point you have looked at all the terrible problems with our society, throughout its history (ruined environment, wars, colonization, christianity, etc) and have wondered what the f__k is wrong with white people. Hugh Brody's certainyl has. And his answer is really interesting. He writes that the root of many of our problems may be with farming, and the way that farming organizes society.
In 'The Other Side of Eden' he retells the history of the world as an endless lopsided struggle between two kinds of societies. On one side are agricultural societies. On the other side are hunter-gatherer societies. The history of civilization has been the history of agricultural aggression toward and subjugation of hunting societies. He argues that it isn't actually hunting societies that are nomadic, and farming societies that are sedentary, but the reverse! Farming societies are nomadic, and hunting tribes are sedentary! I won't say any more, 'cause I could just go on and on and on.
An amazing, original, courageous piece of writing. Few books really have the power to change the way you think about the world. This one just might.
November 17, 2025
Great work of cold anthropology. It pairs strangely well with Nanook of the North (1922): one shows the image, the other gives you the mind and soul of life at the edge of the world.
I found this book on the street (in a Little Free Library)
I found this book on the street (in a Little Free Library)
July 20, 2021
I found this to be a very interesting read, especially as it followed on closely from my reading of Bruce Pascoe's, Dark Emu. Pascoe's main argument was that Aboriginals were farmers, whereas Brody's argument is that farming is not all it’s cracked up to be and that maybe the hunter gatherer way of life had a lot more going for it. This resonated with me, as even though I know Pascoe's argument was written to help rebuke the belief that Australia was terra nullius, and he did this to help promote land rights for the First Nations People, I kept asking myself, why do we have to prove Aboriginals were farmers? We shouldn't have to. A hunter gatherer way of life is not an inferior way of living, but unfortunately our legal system has not seen it this way.
There were some fascinating ideas and insights shared in this book. I loved the recount of Brody's travels with Inuit people and how they lived off the land.
Brody emphasised the significance that language plays in shaping one's culture and how horrific it was that the newcomers tried their best to rob indigenous people of their language though government policy. The quote regarding residential schools for Indian children, "I could feel the sadness coming in", says it all. p177
Brody also argued that agriculture has a price: labour and hard work, and the spreading of disease though proximity to animals (especially detrimental to hunter gathers who were not immune). The dependence on small plots, makes farmers vulnerable, whereas the there are no fences segregating plots for hunter gatherers and food is shared, not owned.
Another interesting point made was that hunter gatherers had more stable societies than the newcomers by having fairer distribution of resources and better social justice.
There were so many similarities between the hunter gather peoples all around the world. I could make many connections with what has happened to Australian Aboriginals: war, disease, demise of game, loss of language and culture, substance abuse, to name a few.
The main argument to take away from Brody’s book is that we need to pay more acknowledgement to the hunter gatherer way of life. It is not inferior and we have much to learn from them. ‘With them we can achieve a more complete version of ourselves.” p 314. Why is it that we go to work, to buy the car to get to work to buy the clothes to wear to work, to buy the house we hardly spend time in? It makes you wonder.
There were some fascinating ideas and insights shared in this book. I loved the recount of Brody's travels with Inuit people and how they lived off the land.
Brody emphasised the significance that language plays in shaping one's culture and how horrific it was that the newcomers tried their best to rob indigenous people of their language though government policy. The quote regarding residential schools for Indian children, "I could feel the sadness coming in", says it all. p177
Brody also argued that agriculture has a price: labour and hard work, and the spreading of disease though proximity to animals (especially detrimental to hunter gathers who were not immune). The dependence on small plots, makes farmers vulnerable, whereas the there are no fences segregating plots for hunter gatherers and food is shared, not owned.
Another interesting point made was that hunter gatherers had more stable societies than the newcomers by having fairer distribution of resources and better social justice.
There were so many similarities between the hunter gather peoples all around the world. I could make many connections with what has happened to Australian Aboriginals: war, disease, demise of game, loss of language and culture, substance abuse, to name a few.
The main argument to take away from Brody’s book is that we need to pay more acknowledgement to the hunter gatherer way of life. It is not inferior and we have much to learn from them. ‘With them we can achieve a more complete version of ourselves.” p 314. Why is it that we go to work, to buy the car to get to work to buy the clothes to wear to work, to buy the house we hardly spend time in? It makes you wonder.
August 16, 2025
Counting this as finished, despite actually having about 15 pages left to read...
Very rarely DNF a book, but a good friend wisely reminded me that life is far too short when there are so many great books out there to read!
Pro's - This was a seriously interesting and thought provoking book, full of humility and giving voice to indigenous populations I knew very little about. The sections where the author recounts hunting with the Inuit out on the ice fields, bunking down in snow caves and ice houses and travelling by dog - awesome, interesting and I wanted more, likewise for several of the sections recalling powerful court cases between the crown and the people of the land.
Con's - Although I don't think this was the intention, the author inadvertently, through a treacle-heavy focus on the philosophy of language, quoting Wittgenstein several times (yikes), completely drowns the author in page after page after page of musings on language and the origins of language and just when he tries to move on into chapters about other things, titled 'Gods', etc, he proceeds to go into even more, deeper still, discussion on the philosophy and origins of language and meaning of the spoken word that is supposed to bring the reader closer to the world of the culture or population being discussed. Sadly, it instead made me feel I was reading the script for a philosophy PhD with a cheeky hint of anthropological anecdotes thrown in every now and then.
Sorry Hugh!
Very rarely DNF a book, but a good friend wisely reminded me that life is far too short when there are so many great books out there to read!
Pro's - This was a seriously interesting and thought provoking book, full of humility and giving voice to indigenous populations I knew very little about. The sections where the author recounts hunting with the Inuit out on the ice fields, bunking down in snow caves and ice houses and travelling by dog - awesome, interesting and I wanted more, likewise for several of the sections recalling powerful court cases between the crown and the people of the land.
Con's - Although I don't think this was the intention, the author inadvertently, through a treacle-heavy focus on the philosophy of language, quoting Wittgenstein several times (yikes), completely drowns the author in page after page after page of musings on language and the origins of language and just when he tries to move on into chapters about other things, titled 'Gods', etc, he proceeds to go into even more, deeper still, discussion on the philosophy and origins of language and meaning of the spoken word that is supposed to bring the reader closer to the world of the culture or population being discussed. Sadly, it instead made me feel I was reading the script for a philosophy PhD with a cheeky hint of anthropological anecdotes thrown in every now and then.
Sorry Hugh!
March 12, 2023
One of the best non-fiction books I've ever read. It's up there. Incredible story telling, great message. Love it. Will read it again for sure.
April 1, 2019
Brody’s consideration of hunter-gatherer societies has a provocative premise at its core, one that he first tackles in Chapter 2: that agriculture is at the root of human migration and the toxicity of capitalism, in that it is predicated on the constant push towards acquisition and improvement of the land by moving off the land as soon as it is no longer viable. He ties this concept to the story of Genesis in order to show the potency of this narrative, and narrative and language play an important role throughout his book, offering a pathway to understanding the societies of hunter-gatherers in the Arctic circle and how their lives are much more rooted and organized than the “civilizing” impulses of Western capitalist society have ever been able to see. That he does this in beautiful prose, weaving together meditations on past ethnographic research, literature, oral history, folklore, and mythology, treatments on linguistics and the language systems of indigenous people, and ideologies of the human-nature divide, make the book that much more powerful. But what he ultimately wants us to see is the significance of the hunter-gatherer life as a way to understand the negotiated relationship between human beings and the natural world—he pursues the anthropologist’s goal to “celebrate the qualities of a system, and to identify the many ways in which that system secures a successful relationship between people and their lands, as well as among the people themselves—this is to identify the real, not to perpetuate the romantic.” (139) Part of that process requires seen the value of living at the margins of the world as living in deliberate harmony with nature, preserving its potential for future generations, and also seeing how agriculture is a “narrowing,” rather than expanding, of resources. (143). We have to challenge our faith in agriculture as a master narrative in order to see the powerful implications of hunter-gatherer life as an alternative way of living in nature.
June 27, 2017
I like this book a lot. Brody is curious about how people shape language and how language shapes them. On these topics he has smart things to say. He learns about people by living with them, and he goes in humbly. As a result, people want to teach him, so he learns about culture from the ground up. This informs his observations with lived experience, and insights and wisdom--not just factual information--based on his subjects' perceptions and challenges specific to their culture.
I share Brody's deep interest in hunter-gatherer life. People in these cultures live incredibly close to animals who share their world, to the land (and sea), the seasons, the weather, and they have beautiful, often spiritual things to say about them.
Brody writes well, and he has a good sense of narrative, character, and drama. His book blends narrative and analysis and includes illuminating asides. He's an interesting person who's had interesting experiences and has interesting things to say about them.
I share Brody's deep interest in hunter-gatherer life. People in these cultures live incredibly close to animals who share their world, to the land (and sea), the seasons, the weather, and they have beautiful, often spiritual things to say about them.
Brody writes well, and he has a good sense of narrative, character, and drama. His book blends narrative and analysis and includes illuminating asides. He's an interesting person who's had interesting experiences and has interesting things to say about them.
March 7, 2009
Brody explores the differences between hunter/gatherer and agricultural societies. He make a compelling argument about the source of many of civilization's shortcomings, using a parallel narrative of his experiences in Canadian Inuit communities. To me, this book had linguistic and philosophical depth that was engaging. At times he is overly sentimental and praises the concept of a "noble savage" a bit much for my tastes, but overall a great read.
July 20, 2020
Deeply interesting and even more so moving, this book allows an informed insight into life outside of agricultural society and in the Arctic & Sub-Arctic without having the voyeuristic feeling a lot of books in the same vein possess. It also doesn't assume the reader will have a deep understanding of anthropology which makes it very accessible!! Especially if (like me) you have an interest in anthropology but no academic or formal schooling !
November 29, 2022
This book seemed to have a slow start, but its quiet, thoughtful story gently shifted my perspective and has me thinking about the roles of hunter-gatherer and farming. I want to read another of his books.
Reading this book made me appreciate the sacredness of our own culture's language. Careful explanations of the nuances of translating words that have no matching words in another language makes me aware of the richness another language adds to life. Although I have become aware of heartbreaking subversion thrust upon indigenous peoples, Brody's poignancy made them painfully real.
How fortunate those students in his philosophy course have been!
Reading this book made me appreciate the sacredness of our own culture's language. Careful explanations of the nuances of translating words that have no matching words in another language makes me aware of the richness another language adds to life. Although I have become aware of heartbreaking subversion thrust upon indigenous peoples, Brody's poignancy made them painfully real.
How fortunate those students in his philosophy course have been!
September 18, 2023
It has been a while, but I am sharing its lessons with a group of people now, so it must have left an impression of just how differently hunter-gatherers think. The lesson I am sharing is that the Internet has turned us all into information hunter-gatherers. I gave it four stars because, as I recall, it touches on spiritual things while reading a materialistic worldview back into Genesis, which is rough handling of Genesis and its authors. It seemed like good popular anthropology though, and still has a lot of thought-provoking things to say about the inner cost of the settled existence of cultivation, extraction, and comparative scarcity.
November 13, 2021
This was a tremendously insightful and moving book. As an inhabitant of the Arctic visited by Brody, this book has cast a fresh perspective on the world and the people around me. Highly recommended read for anyone interested human development and history, and specifically the space where H-G and P-G (p. 304) worlds meet.
January 31, 2019
This book is like an exercise in making a really interesting subject deadly dull.
June 4, 2020
Brody's writing is thoughtful, eloquent, and carefully crafted to fill your mind with images that evoke a multitude of different emotions. I highly recommend.
November 11, 2022
This is a beautiful book that elegantly looks at hunter-gatherer versus farmer relations. Brody studied the Inuit extensively and shows a great deal of respect for their lifestyle.
October 1, 2024
Best anthropological book I’ve read. Really interesting and I learned a lot. I disagreed with some points but overall good
July 15, 2025
Kinda sleepy and philosophical but nice theory and good writing. Makes you reflect on your life for sure, love a little existentialism
July 24, 2017
this might honestly be the best book i have ever read, and i've read a lot. if you can read this book and come away from it thinking there is nothing fundamentally wrong with civilization, then i probably want nothing much to do with you.
the text embraces cosmology, linguistics, natural history, ecology, anthropology, philosophy, sociology, history, and much more... but no simple list of areas of inquiry can do justice to its scope and significance.
here's a review i once wrote for it elsewhere: "do you think that the struggles and the fate of the world's remaining hunter-gatherer societies have nothing to do with your own? do you think anyone is really a willing conscript into a sedentary life based on the accumulation of capital? read this book for an unforgettable picture of the frontier of our world of farms and parking lots as it bleeds out ever further toward the ends of the earth. this breathtaking and heartbreaking text absolutely overflows the bounds of genre, science, discipline, and dispassion. if you want to see how the package deal of domestication, colonization, and commodification (described in its Middle Ages and early modern european dimensions in Silvia Federici's "Caliban and the Witch") might have wormed its way into being and glimpse the loss with which even the civilized are yet threatened... look no further. i can't think of a book that i would honestly say is better than this. astounding."
the text embraces cosmology, linguistics, natural history, ecology, anthropology, philosophy, sociology, history, and much more... but no simple list of areas of inquiry can do justice to its scope and significance.
here's a review i once wrote for it elsewhere: "do you think that the struggles and the fate of the world's remaining hunter-gatherer societies have nothing to do with your own? do you think anyone is really a willing conscript into a sedentary life based on the accumulation of capital? read this book for an unforgettable picture of the frontier of our world of farms and parking lots as it bleeds out ever further toward the ends of the earth. this breathtaking and heartbreaking text absolutely overflows the bounds of genre, science, discipline, and dispassion. if you want to see how the package deal of domestication, colonization, and commodification (described in its Middle Ages and early modern european dimensions in Silvia Federici's "Caliban and the Witch") might have wormed its way into being and glimpse the loss with which even the civilized are yet threatened... look no further. i can't think of a book that i would honestly say is better than this. astounding."
August 25, 2025
Yea i do hate Farmers sir
okay i just don’t like genocide N i felt Patience as a character a little…… helpless or hopeless
okay i just don’t like genocide N i felt Patience as a character a little…… helpless or hopeless
January 28, 2009
One of the most enlightening books I have ever read. Puts nature and human beings into their proper perspective, that is to say that humans should survive in a manner similar to our ancestors, the hunters and gatherers, if we want to survive as a species and not wreck our planet's resources. Since the dawn of the age of farming, we have wreaked havoc on our planet, and Brody systematically and thoroughly shows us how this is so. He spent a lot of time with the natives of upper western Canada, where he learned more about about changing climate, respecting nature, and the land. The reader comes away with a sense of dire urgency for our future and a sense that one can make a difference in the future with the knowledge gained here.
June 20, 2014
With varying degrees of anthropology, history, philosophy and theology Brody's work is at the very least thought provoking. With the idea that Genesis can be viewed as a history of the interaction between hunter-gatherers and farmers the author points out that farming societies are as nomadic, if not more so, than hunter-gatherers. As farming communities increase in size members have to leave for other places to make a living. Hunter-gatherers generally stay in the same relative geographic area. Reading this book one wonders who is the more 'civilized' the colonizers or the indigenous peoples they try to replace.
January 31, 2011
This book is helpful for shaping one's perspective of different cultures and understanding one's ties to his/her own culture. It goes far beyond just telling the story of a few native tribes or people but really gives insight into differences between the hunter/gatherer way of life and the farmer way of life since European discovery of the Americas and its associated conflict. The comparison of these two ways of life is detailed and very engaging. There is no soap box preaching only a genuine attempt to convey a message of different but equal.
July 28, 2011
Some great passages in here on the different hunter-gather communities Brody has spent time living and working with. Unfortunately, for me, too often it gets rather bogged down in the intricacies of linguistic origins or the various belief systems. As interesting as these subjects are it felt much more disjointed and less satisfactory reading than his other work Maps And Dreams which I'd recently read and enjoyed far more. For a student of this particular field of anthropology it will doubtless prove extremely valuable.
May 27, 2015
IMO the first two-thirds were five stars, but I found the last third a bit uneven. I was especially disappointed with how Brody discussed gender roles in hunter gatherer cultures; I thought in spite of his attempts to explain how women and men have "separate yet equal" roles, his explanation itself showed bias. I also thought his conclusion was on the perfunctory side.
On the whole, the book gave me lots to think about. Definitely worth a read.
On the whole, the book gave me lots to think about. Definitely worth a read.
September 14, 2007
This was among the best books I've read this year. Brody has the clearest picture of the relationship between hunting cultures and farming that I've seen. He writes compellingly weaving storied experience and broader theory.
December 12, 2008
Insightful. Required reading for an anthropology class but as enjoyable as if I had picked it out myself. One of the few books that really changes the way you not only look at a culture, but the world as a whole.
February 7, 2011
This book definitely changed the way I think about indigenous societies. I enjoyed Brody's writing because he presents his theories with typical anthropological anecdotes, but also gives some well-written religious meaning to the hunter-gatherer history and lifestyle.
Displaying 1 - 28 of 34 reviews