content: The author attempts in leaps and bounds to make causal inferences such as, "Because so-and-so plant developed on the Euphrates, the region thrived culturally and economically." For each of these myriad statements, he skips about 76,000 mediating factors along the way, as well as 4 billion other possible explanations. The cause and effect statements as put forth in this fiction novel are dangerous, unscientific, and completely uninteresting to anyone remotely logical. This was the absolute worst over-hyped book I've read in 5 years. It clearly overlooks the scientific method for the sake of appeasing the liberal masses. Big brother is now a liberal since this is the only kind of garbage "science" you can get your hands on anymore.