The book describes the process of creating a settled society. The process hurt a lot. The view taught at school is that as soon as people could farm, they dropped hunting and foraging and started growing crops. It is not correct.
Life before farming was better. We know that the diet of hunters was more diverse and secure. People lived in wet regions. Arid regions where the first civilizations appeared were less populated and harder to live in.
The first people ate anything: they hunted, foraged, and occasionally gardened. Since they had various food sources, the likelihood of famine was lower. When there was a shortage in one resource, usually others could pick up the slack.
Hunters and foragers didn't move. Now the hunters and gatherers need to move. It is because they inhabit only the harshest places on Earth. All good land is cultivated and occupied. In history, that was not the case. Most hunters lived in permanent settlements.
The misconceptions about the life of hunters stem from the fact that we don't have too many archaeological remains of them. In the desert, artefacts survive, and in floodplains, they decompose. Even when their life was better, they didn't produce more.
In the free early societies, people were often not producing as much as they could. Modern hunter-gatherers work between three to six hours. There are not too many things they can do to increase the chance of their survival. Food spoils easily. The number of tools is small.
From an evolutionary perspective, it is better to socialize than create surpluses. Culturally, hoarding was discouraged, so if anyone decided to store a lot of durable food, he would need to share it in time of need (with the popular kids).
If we speculate a lot, we can say that this is why the northern countries are more individualistic (and have a work ethic). You have to prepare for the winter, so you produce surpluses during summer. That means you need to work hard. It creates a culture where you don't need to share with someone who didn't work as hard.
Moreover, up to very recently, there was nothing to buy. The quality of the tools was the same. A bigger house would mean more work, and so on.
So when you see monuments, they are usually created involuntarily: Either by slaves directly or by people who had a lot of food to pay with (that they usually got violently).
Now the question is why the civilization even appeared. It was a complicated and violent process, but there were good reasons for it. First, the environment got drier (and the population grew in more dry places). Second, the irrigation needed to be big to be effective.
In wet times, a lot of places can sustain some population. People who are not happy about their masters leave and settle somewhere else. In drier conditions, there are only a few places (the shores of the Nile, for example) where people survive. Everywhere else is desert.
The creation of an irrigation system also requires a lot of work and organization. The easiest way how to obtain workers was to capture them. When you don't need their consent, the organization is also straightforward.
The society was built by soldiers that captured slaves to build and work for them. Since there were few places where the slaves could run away, masters treated them differently. Slaves could have more freedom and only a small number of masters.
A vital ingredient in the transformation of people from slaves (as we understand it now, bound and micromanaged by a slavemaster) to just peasants was grains. Grains have many advantages to creating society.
Grains have a harvest season. It means on a few days, every grain has to be harvested. When some soldiers come on that day and take their cut, it's easy. They know how much was produced and how much they can take.
Some plants (like peas) ripen continuously. There is no specific time when an army can arrive and take a portion of the harvest. Other foods (like potatoes) can be left in the ground and dug out when needed.
Grains are easy to store and transport. That means granaries could store everything centrally and distribute it as needed.
In history, no states were growing something other than grains. People could easily avoid taxes in that case.
At that time, the civilizations consisted of a fertile core. The core was under the control of the state almost all the time. The taxes were highest there, but also protection against barbarians. It was the place with the most culture (which means, statistically speaking, a random person was the one who produced the culture, not consuming it).
Marginal lands were around the core These lands were under the control of the state during an expansion phase of the state. People lived there, but extracting taxes from these regions was harder. Since their land was less fertile, they were more prone to bad harvests. That meant they either didn't pay too much taxes or rebelled when there was a bad harvest because the alternative was to starve.
Sometimes even the core got emptied, and the fastest and most often used method was to capture some people somewhere else and force them to work there involuntarily. (This happened to the Jews in Babylon).
Around the states were barren and sparsely populated lands. Barbarians lived there. People living there were still hunters or at least herders. Life without the state was hard for them, but they were better fed than farmers. The less extensive agriculture meant the bad years were not as bad.
Generally, the barbarians didn't need the states. They were self-sufficient. On the other hand, the state sometimes required the cooperation of barbarians. In the mountains, there were deposits of metals. On the steppe, the barbarians possessed the best war technology, horses.
The state was afraid of barbarians. Their fighting techniques were superior. Because of the lifestyle, a large part of the population was fighting. Periodically, the barbarians united and conquered what we see as more advanced civilizations. Like Huns or Mongols. The Great Wall defends against such an invasion. It was the case until the sixteen century when technology finally caught on.
It was impossible to fight barbarians on their land. They were mobile and could avoid conflict. The solution that a lot of states implemented was that it paid tribute to barbarians. Sometimes, to leave the trade routes open. Sometimes, states officially incorporated the barbarians into the country, but the barbarians got the money and were free.
Barbarians influenced the culture significantly and mixed with the population of the state. It was not a one-way process from barbarian to civilized. When the state had an upper hand, it could capture some barbarians and force them to settle down. Sometimes the barbarians conquered a state. They acted as new overlords. When the state became tyrannical, people fled and became barbarians.
I enjoy very much books about primitive societies. This one was no different. The writing was light and fun. Moreover, I learned a lot that I didn't know. I needed to correct my worldview on the creation of society. I recommend.
One fun observation from the book: Education, record keeping, and writing were needed to establish who should pay and how much. Especially writing was hated. Only taxmen and oppressors wrote. So anyone who wanted to learn to read was viewed with suspicion.