Marvin Harris: Cannibals and Kings: Origins of Cultures

I read it chapter by chapter in 8-9 weeks. It would have been better to read it in one sitting. It is a fascinating book. I don’t think I can or want to do better than the Amazon summary: “Marvin Harris shows how the endless varieties of cultural behavior — often so puzzling at first glance — can be explained as adaptations to particular ecological conditions. His aim is to account for the evolution of cultural forms as Darwin accounted for the evolution of biological forms: to show how cultures adopt their characteristic forms in response to changing ecological modes.” Most chapters were challenging in the sense that he provided historical information I could check and felt doubtful about their completeness. At the same time he derived explanations from them that were compelling. This applies to the origin of war and agriculture, the Aztecs, the Egyptian, the Industrial Revolution, the cow’s role in India, the pig’s in ancient Israel and so on. Just for the scope of its topics the book was worthwhile to read.

• @Amazon