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Try 'The History of Everything' by David Graeber
Dawn of Everything?
There ya go, thats the one.
W. H. Prescott briefly covers the political and economic structure of the Aztec and Inca in his History of the Conquest of Mexico and Peru but it is no deep analysis. The sources he cites might be a useful starting point.
I'm currently reading Open Veins of Latin America. Again, touched very briefly but there are sources that might point in the right direction.
1491 by Charles Mann is one of the best places to jump in to this. It forms a more extensive history by tying in not just archaeology but also genetic and ecological records, it's kind of like reading about land management as well as history. But to be fair, a huge part of history is land management questions.
charles mann is a contributing editor at the atlantic, which makes me think anything he's written will be liberal pablum with no materialist analysis. is that not the case?
The central thesis is "civilizations nascent to the Americas are worth a lot more than 7 pages in a history textbook", most of the book concerns itself with dispelling colonial narratives, and the end of the book suggests influences on Western democratic societies that did not come from European sources. It is profoundly anti-chauvinist.
"I'm going to discount anything this person has written because of their association with X organization" is baby-brained. If you see something that's clouded by ideology you should be able to see through it. One of the books I read that extensively informed my stance on capitalism was written by a reactionary whose arguments were very clumsy but whose historical research was good.
youre reading a lot more hostility into my comment than i intended. it’s just a question, relax
it's a good book, i liked it, it connects to soil science and exemplifies the good that humans can do for the environment, and ends on a heartwarming tone that will not surprise a socialist but contributed to my radicalization in my late teens
i liked the iroquois and diplomacy on the american frontier where the author talks about how american founders called the native leaders great statesman but still broke all their treaties with them
this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2025
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