Pre-Industrial Societies

What Hacker News says

1. 0xDEAFBEADNov 2024
   This book did a lot to inform my sketch: https://www.amazon.com/Pre-Industrial-Societies-Anatomy-Pre-...

   I don't think she says anything about democracy at all. It doesn't seem to have been common in pre-industrial times.

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2. thaumasiotesSep 2018
   Pre-Industrial Societies: Anatomy of the Pre-Modern World https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1780747411/

   Brotherhood of Kings: How International Relations Shaped the Ancient Near East https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195313984/

   The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the Economy Bigger https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691136408/

   The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon: An Elusive World Wonder Traced https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CG3JMD0/

   The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature https://www.amazon.com/dp/0670031518/

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3. thaumasiotesJan 2022
   Pre-Industrial Societies: Anatomy of the Pre-Modern World ( https://www.amazon.com/dp/1780747411/ ) presents serfdom as one outcome of a battle between the head of state and local nobility that was common across societies, with serfdom being what the nobility wants and freeholding being what the head of state wants. The analysis is that each side wants peasants to have the status that makes tax collection easier for their side.

   Interestingly, those positions have reversed in the modern day, with the analogue of serfdom -- W2 employment -- heavily favored by the state, and the analogue of freeholding -- employment as a contractor -- preferable to employers (who mostly lack the power to implement it over the state's objection).

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4. thaumasiotesOct 2019
   Pre-Industrial Societies: Anatomy of the Pre-Modern World ( https://www.amazon.com/dp/1780747411/ ) makes the case that standardized weights and measures do indeed make things easier for the state, but that in this case the state is on the side of the peasants against the nobility who would like to enserf them.

   History supports this view in some obvious ways -- European peasant revolutions included demands for standardized weights and measures as a counter to abuse of nonstandard measures by local lords.

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