[gmassman]

I finished the book earlier this week, and can say it does distance itself from the initial chapters pretty quickly. They are important frames of reference, and I can definitely understand the authors reasons to include those ideas so prominently. Anthropology was developed as a western oriented study, and carries along with it many of the biases and assumptions that only Europeans could have endowed.

The political climates that existed during the colonization of the Americas played an important role in the evolution of modern cultures. The book is filled with examples of different societies and how they formed, and politics has played a role in ever single instance. Regardless of if you agree with the authors’ ideologies or not, they do a pretty good job of remaining neutral when examining historical evidence. I found it a nice change of pace from the typical “westernized” explanations of how civilizations (especially Native Americans) were structured.

Overall I think it’s an excellent read, well worth the investment.