Thank you both for your insight. I will read the book with a skeptical eye, and try and read some of the critiques as well.

Just finished Fields of Fire finally. On a rec from the EB. Good read. Very sobering. Can easily draw parallels of Vietnam to ME conflicts of recent years.

Currently reading, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Fascinating read. Somehow managed to not have read it up to this point. I never really knew how Hitler came to power. Very insightful and interesting. It was NOT a cakewalk liked I always assumed and he came close to death /failure on his rise more than once. He put in a LOT of work to reach where he did. Granted, he was in a very rare situation of multiple events all going through a perfect storm, but nonetheless, was very eye opening to see the first days and years of the Nazi party.

After that probably gonna do some cheesy sci fi action. It's been a while.

I'd just like to chime in to say to read most things with a degree of skepticism - especially in the fields of anthropology or psychology - and compare them with other sources, like Marco was saying. People (even scientists!) disagree about things so it can be easy to slip into reading something as gospel or as the consensus of the field when it's not. Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman got a lot of positive attention when it was released several years ago and even now I see people making references to things in the book, not knowing that a lot of stuff in the book has been disproven/failed to be replicated.

Agreed.

Leviticus

I found his writing interesting and fun. I agree with his (not really his but it's a great summary) thesis that geography is a major driving factor in our history and that guns germs and steel enabled (not caused) European dominance.

There were a few times he appeared too committed to his argument or reductionist to fully acknowledge flaws or painted with too broad a brush and made no effort whatsoever to examine if there are any significant cultural contributions or the impact of wise or foolish great leaders. With his guns germs steel premise in mind, there Is no particularly good reason the middle east should not still lead/dominate the world like it did for the bulk of ancient history.

I found his declaration earlyish in the book (it's been a few years) that the native new Guinean(?) people he spent time with were actually on average more intelligent than typical Europeans to be extremely unlikely if not demonstrably false.

The "continent orientation" argument I found a bit limited also. While I concede that there is a larger temperate zone in asia, North America and Africa are truly enormous and have huge latitude stretches that would certainly allow domesticated crops to be transported over vast areas.

I also think he too quickly dismisses some north American and African megafauna. Yea zebra's are ****s, I'll give you that one. But bison are not at all a species that couldn't be ranched. It's not as if wild horses, oxen, or aurochs aren't a bit ornery and incredibly dangerous when provoked.

1 Peter ... and focusing on "our inheritance". How wonderful it is to belong to the Family of God ... a Family whose Father owns everything! Job 41:11

And, His ownership is eternal not temporal ... as is our inheritance in Christ.

Christ Inviting Sinners to Come to Him for Rest, Jeremiah Burroughs