Description
Book SynopsisPrehistoric human life is a common reference point in contemporary culture, inspiring attempts to become happier, healthier, better people. Back to the Stone Age explores how ideas about race are tightly woven into the prehistoric imagination, revealing insights into present-day anxieties and showing that the human past is not set in stone.
Trade Review“An engaging and eclectic catalogue of case studies that highlight ideas of race in places where most people wouldn’t think to look for them, from the iconography of Stonehenge to what it really means to call Donald Trump a Neanderthal. I now feel vindicated in my instinctive aversion to the paleo diet and survival-based reality television; others will find tools for their anti-racist endeavours within these pages too.” Subhadra Das, author of (Un)Civilised: 10 Lies That Made the West
“Breathtaking in scope, often hilarious in tone, serious about scholarship, and full of critical insight, Back to the Stone Age shows how and why we need to engage with the distant past in order to work towards what we would like to be now. Essential reading for our times, this is a book for all antiracists desperate to save our shared planetary home.” Vron Ware, author of Return of a Native: Learning from the Land
“This stimulating book … explores ways in which people seek solace and inspiration by engaging with prehistory in a modern world failed by technology and capitalism. [Pitcher] takes us through “survival” television; race, class and log-burners (this book is nothing if not eclectic); genetic ancestry; prehistoric landscapes (Stonehenge and Brexit); museum representations of Neanderthals; and links between popular culture and science (in which he discovers a buried Wu-Tang Clan cd at Piltdown).” British Archaeology
