To reiterate/reinforce a prior response from J.O Manning: The rampant misconceptions about pre-agricultural human societies that Chris Ryan highlights in “Civilized to Death” prevent us from taking an unvarnished look at a fundamentally twisted modern civilization driven by narcissistic consumption. It’s a book that should be required reading for anyone interested in understanding cultural anthropology. We are, above all, social mammals, but with neuro-linguistic processing networks that apparently predispose us to a belief in slicky framed lies. Certainly not a prescription for sanity.