The Case Against Civilization: Did Our Hunter-Gatherer Ancestors Have It Better?

John Lanchester, New Yorker

We flatter ourselves, says Lanchester, by believing that the “dark age” existence of our hunter-gatherer progenitors was so grim and our modern, civilized one so great. Drawing on two recent works he suggests this may not be the case. Is there a lesson to be learned from the radical egalitarianism of their hunter-gatherer way of life?