Reddit mentions of On Deep History and the Brain

add this to your holiday wish list. its a great book called "deep history and the brain". it pulls from the study of history, biology, and neuroscience, but the dude is a compelling writer, so you won't feel swamped by fact after fact. its actually a bit of an assault on the practice of history. traditionally, historians only start with written language, and leave pre-literate civilization to anthropology or archeology. he wants to challenge that (first part of the book) and then tie that into modern history (second part of the book) by showing that instead of focusing on the written word for creating a historical narrative, we can start with biology and the brain to construct one that goes much deeper (i.e. "deep history") and therefore can be more illuminating in ways a traditional account of historical unfolding cannot.

so you've got your science/STEM in there, and your history. I think you'd dig it.

On Deep History and the Brain was quite simply mind-expanding. Harvard history professor Daniel Lord Smail's topic is freeing history from the traditional Judeo-Christian time frame and fully integrating it with recent work in things like the neurosciences or evolutionary theory, thus abandoning once and for all the idea of "prehistory".

As an example, the author posits that the usage of caffeine in Europe beginning in the 1600's effected a kind of massively parallel change in brain chemistries, altering the track of history. Check it out! This is history of the most cutting-edge variety.