Started with the Graeber and Wengrow book (it's long and I have a zillion things to do so it will take a while to get through). Interesting. As a philosopher w background in anthropology and archaeology, I hope to write something of interest about this book.
Can I just start w a couple of quibbles? I understand the scope of this book is vast but Graeber and Wengrow's discussion about the Kula ring as purely ceremonial exchange (they adapt this from Malinowski, who wanted to make a point with this) is factually wrong.
Malinowski deliberately downplayed the trade that went on together with the Kula ring exchange of bracelets and necklaces to make a point--Oceania specialists have known this for a long time, so it was a bit disappointing to see that in the book. Anyway. Expect more quibbles.
What I do like so far is their discussion of the importance of Indigenous philosophies (and Chinese etc philosophy) influence in Enlightenment thinking. This has often been glossed away as not real (obviously not real), and obviously it is hard to establish influence definitely
But... (But!!) I think at this point it would be very useful if there were a book on the Enlightenment for a big audience actually written by specialists in early modern philosophy. You see Pinker and Wengrow and Graeber trying to get to grips with Enlightenment with quite...
limited expertise (ahem). It's not terrible what Graeber and Wengrow write about Rousseau but it still misses finesse about the project and proper contextualization in Enlightenment ideas and what the project of Enlightenment actually is.
(@nescio13 when you are up to it you should write a bestseller on the enlightenment). Pinker's take was terrible obviously (Enlightenment = reason) but this take (Enlightenment = inspiration of Indigenous philosophies) is also somewhat oversimplifying).
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