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Title: This book is using very antiquated racial theories.
Review: I am sad to see the "hamitic" hypothesis is alive and well after reading the first sections of human history here, and to see the author claim that the Sumerians were "probably caucasian in root" (43) According to Matthew Frye Jacobson's very good book, Whiteness of a Different Color, the "caucasian" racial category was cooked up some time in the 1920s and has no scientific basis. The naturalizing of racial categories in this book is disappointing, and I am sad to see that a book using them received such uncritical reviews from such respected publications as The Economist and the Christian Science Monitor. As an antidote to this version of world history, I'd suggest a little Basil Davidson and Martin Bernal.
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