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outcolder's review against another edition
2.0
You aren’t going to convince people like Fukuyama with this ranty screed. Jumping to conclusions as a way to show how the enemies of freedom — whatever that means — are also jumping to conclusions doesn’t impress me. Maybe in 1983 when this was written and we are on the brink of nuclear war because the greedheads were so ideological, maybe then but in the meantime I am sure there are better histories out there, more liberatory, more feminist, and definitely more accurate. I also have to say there were more than a few points where the book just bored me. The author thinks he is being so shocking! But again, I think in the intervening years the idea, for example, that Eurocentric worldviews are a cul de sac, that the colonized were the civilized people and the colonizers were barbaric, etc, etc, not so new... As for whether the peoples you meet in classic anthropological ethnographies are “in a state of nature” or live in “the Golden age” ... there are certainly more detailed and considered analyses for a variety of conclusions beyond the “noble savage” vs “nasty, brutish and short” crap we’ve been arguing back and forth for hundreds of years.
Frustrating. Frustrating to slog through 6000 years of bad news, and frustrating to get it all from the kind of guy one suspects is critical of any victory short of we all head into the woods and learn how to forage.
Yet at the same time he imagines that every new nationalist movement and every new religious movement and every peasant uprising is at least initially on the side of goodness and light — he actually references Zoroastrian names for goodness and light — and I find that a bit dangerous. I see where he’s coming from, but I also see how the alt-right and old school fascists could run with that idea in the wrong direction, even if the author makes it clear that these movements fail when they become Leviathans themselves. Couple that with his Worm and Octopus metaphors and it starts to feel on the edge of antisemitism or only a few degrees away from David Icke and InfoWars. Then he goes off for a few pages on Cohn, the author of books about Millenniarians and other similar uprisings, saying that Cohn is on the side of Leviathan and therefore sees all these uprisings as bad and their visionary leaders as crazy. Well, that’s not how I remember it. Cohn is conservative, sure, but I did think he was sympathetic to these movements in his treatment but he also points out their antisemitism and maybe pushed the idea that fascism has its roots in these same movements. “Against Leviathan” is too quick to dismiss those criticisms and accuses Cohn of making arguments he didn’t make, actually writing, ‘Cohn doesn’t have to say it, because it’s just understood...’ So again, that makes me uncomfortable. There were also references to things I know were hoaxes, like the Lenni Lenape having a written document detailing their journey over the ice bridge.
Claiming that a more scholarly approach is automatically siding with “worldeaters” is just a cop-out, man.
Despite all these things that I didn’t like, there were bits that I did enjoy. It’s like hanging out with a cranky old comrade who is incredibly well read, outspoken and prickly. That can be amusing in small doses.
Frustrating. Frustrating to slog through 6000 years of bad news, and frustrating to get it all from the kind of guy one suspects is critical of any victory short of we all head into the woods and learn how to forage.
Yet at the same time he imagines that every new nationalist movement and every new religious movement and every peasant uprising is at least initially on the side of goodness and light — he actually references Zoroastrian names for goodness and light — and I find that a bit dangerous. I see where he’s coming from, but I also see how the alt-right and old school fascists could run with that idea in the wrong direction, even if the author makes it clear that these movements fail when they become Leviathans themselves. Couple that with his Worm and Octopus metaphors and it starts to feel on the edge of antisemitism or only a few degrees away from David Icke and InfoWars. Then he goes off for a few pages on Cohn, the author of books about Millenniarians and other similar uprisings, saying that Cohn is on the side of Leviathan and therefore sees all these uprisings as bad and their visionary leaders as crazy. Well, that’s not how I remember it. Cohn is conservative, sure, but I did think he was sympathetic to these movements in his treatment but he also points out their antisemitism and maybe pushed the idea that fascism has its roots in these same movements. “Against Leviathan” is too quick to dismiss those criticisms and accuses Cohn of making arguments he didn’t make, actually writing, ‘Cohn doesn’t have to say it, because it’s just understood...’ So again, that makes me uncomfortable. There were also references to things I know were hoaxes, like the Lenni Lenape having a written document detailing their journey over the ice bridge.
Claiming that a more scholarly approach is automatically siding with “worldeaters” is just a cop-out, man.
Despite all these things that I didn’t like, there were bits that I did enjoy. It’s like hanging out with a cranky old comrade who is incredibly well read, outspoken and prickly. That can be amusing in small doses.
_tourist's review against another edition
an only intermittently useful story founded on some potentially ludicrous statements.
beelzebubbie's review against another edition
5.0
What can I say? This is one of the books that I’ll remember as having changed my life. That I was waiting for. I know I’ll come back to it again and again, I’ve already referenced it so many times. The undead carcass is more visible to me now, more nameable, more tangible than it ever was before Fredy Perlman gave me the language I needed to feel its tendrils around me, described its body. Described us all as the animators within it. That resonates with something so deep inside of me.
emcv's review
challenging
hopeful
informative
slow-paced
5.0
One of the most difficult and most rewarding texts I've ever tackled. Perlman is a beautiful writer. A heavily influential read for my personal/political development
editor_b's review
5.0
A radical history of civilization. Basically, he's against it. No spoiler, that: it's right there in the title. For what is history, as we usually think of it, as we're usually taught it, if not a patriarchal story of conquest and domination in service of empire building? This author makes the case that most everything we laughingly call "civilization" is in fact systematized oppression of humanity and ecological rape of Mother Earth.
It's bracing worldview, to say the least. I think it's just relatable enough that most people — those who aren't blinded by allegiances to nation-state or religion or ideology — would agree with the basic premise. Most people would agree, that is, if we stopped to question the fundamental premises of the society in which we live. Reading the book makes me realize just how rare it is to hear this perspective so consistently and unwaveringly spelled out, page after page, century after century.
This book is highly idiosyncratic, to say the least. It's unlike any history I've ever read. (That's because it's not a history, check the title!) The author starts in ancient Sumeria and takes us all the way to Marxist revolutionaries in the course of just 300 pages, as a more or less continuous narrative. He uses quirky terminology, employs unique metaphors, and never cites a single year. It's not an academic text per se, which I'm sure is a point of pride, but neither is it an easy read. (Personally I would have appreciated some chapter headings. An index would have been nice. How about a bibliography? Nope, there's not a single citation.) Nevertheless it's a very scholarly work, in the sense that Perlman is clearly well-read and possessed of an encyclopedic knowledge of human history. More importantly, perhaps, he has heart. The text demonstrates great empathy for the human condition and respect for those who resist oppressive systems.
I found this book hugely compelling and affecting in a way that is difficult to overstate. It has truly transformed my understanding of the world. At the end, I find myself questioning so much of what I have held to be valuable about civilization. It's a lot to assimilate. I'm not even saying I buy it all, at least not just yet, but he makes a powerful case. I've got to ponder it a while longer.
It's bracing worldview, to say the least. I think it's just relatable enough that most people — those who aren't blinded by allegiances to nation-state or religion or ideology — would agree with the basic premise. Most people would agree, that is, if we stopped to question the fundamental premises of the society in which we live. Reading the book makes me realize just how rare it is to hear this perspective so consistently and unwaveringly spelled out, page after page, century after century.
This book is highly idiosyncratic, to say the least. It's unlike any history I've ever read. (That's because it's not a history, check the title!) The author starts in ancient Sumeria and takes us all the way to Marxist revolutionaries in the course of just 300 pages, as a more or less continuous narrative. He uses quirky terminology, employs unique metaphors, and never cites a single year. It's not an academic text per se, which I'm sure is a point of pride, but neither is it an easy read. (Personally I would have appreciated some chapter headings. An index would have been nice. How about a bibliography? Nope, there's not a single citation.) Nevertheless it's a very scholarly work, in the sense that Perlman is clearly well-read and possessed of an encyclopedic knowledge of human history. More importantly, perhaps, he has heart. The text demonstrates great empathy for the human condition and respect for those who resist oppressive systems.
I found this book hugely compelling and affecting in a way that is difficult to overstate. It has truly transformed my understanding of the world. At the end, I find myself questioning so much of what I have held to be valuable about civilization. It's a lot to assimilate. I'm not even saying I buy it all, at least not just yet, but he makes a powerful case. I've got to ponder it a while longer.
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