The Invention of Prehistory

”[A] deft and provocative book” – Darrin M McMahon - Literary Review“As Stefanos Geroulanos explains, our conception of prehistory is closely intertwined with present-day politics… The relationship between a society’s imagination of prehistory and its views of indigenous peoples is Geroulanos’s most engrossing theme” – Ann Manov - The New Statesman“History may not be bunk, but prehistory is: So argues Stefanos Geroulanos in his spirited new book… The more you want to upend the status quo, the more likely you’ll be to venerate an idyllic past. The reverse is also true: The more you want to preserve the status quo, the more likely you’ll be to scorn the past as horrific — or, at least, unsustainable. Geroulanos traces the long history of Europeans depicting Indigenous and colonized peoples as ‘savage’ — thereby rationalizing every violent measure used against them, from brutality to annihilation.” – Jennifer Szalai - The New York Times“The strength of Mr. Geroulanos’s book lies in its breadth. It ranges easily from the pseudoscience of Freud and Jung (for both of whom idiosyncratic notions of prehistory were important) to Nazi obsessions with origins, Unesco debates about racism and modern feminist strains of social theory. Mr. Geroulanos has a good ear for prose and a knack for defamiliarizing expressions that should seem stranger: His pages on the phrase ‘the thin veneer of civilization,’ for example, are extraordinary. The book is lavishly and thoughtfully supplied with illustrations that enrich the discussion… . The problem of prehistory remains enormous, indeed, and it is humbling to be reminded of its abuses. Mr. Geroulanos has done so vividly.” – Kyle Harper - The Wall Street Journal“In this remarkable and enlivening study, Stefanos Geroulanos traces the development of our modern fascination with humanity’s deep past, and lays out that fascination’s deadly costs.” – Amia Srinivasan, author of The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century

Stefanos Geroulanos is the Director of the Remarque Institute and a Professor of History at New York University. The author of Transparency in Postwar France: A Critical History of the Present and other books, he lives in New York, NY.

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