I was so looking forward to reading this, but due to technical issues I couldn't read the ARC I was supplied with. I have unfortunately been unable to find a copy elsewhere. Mixed Harvest explores humans transition from hunter- gatherers to agricultural societies. How did this change bring about the vast inequality that we have today? I hope that I will still come across a copy of this some day, and will update my review at that time.

I liked that each chapter began and ended with historical information on the characters and the era they lived in. I like these types of books; they are a fantastic way to teach history by putting it in a form people can relate to.

I expected to be fascinated by this book but struggled to keep reading it. It's an interesting subject but I just didn't connect with the stories. Other readers may find it a better fit.

I appreciate the publisher allowing me to read this book. I loved this book and could not put it down. Can't wait to read more.

I skipped reading the preface as I wasn't sure there were any spoilers included, but that was a mistake!

The first few pages were very difficult to read and get into, so I went back and read the Preface, which helped me understand the stories a little better from then on....

I loved reading about the transition and progress from a "shelter" to a "house" to a "home" and all the different decisions that went into it, using short stories.

As it truly states in the book, ""Mixed Harvest" is a plea to pay attention to the past in order to prepare for the future!"

#MixedHarvest #NetGalley

This is a very unusual book, and I found it very interesting. The author has written the history of man and illuminated it with stories depicting humans at various times in history. It proceeds chronologically from the Paleolithic, the Old Stone Age, through the Neolithic, the New Stone Age, into the the age of the city and relatively modern times. It is a narrative of the changes in ways of living, the development of civilization in settlements and cities, and the relationship of religion to this. He uses the named characters and stories about their lives to help us understand the progression. It is very well researched and documented, and I think it owes its readability to the fact that it was written by someone who was first a writer, and then developed his interest in archaeology. If you have any interest in anthropology, archaeology, and the history of mankind, I think you will enjoy this book.

Thanks to Netgalley and Berghahn Books for an ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

Mixed Harvest is a fictional work that reimagines how humans lived thousands of years ago to the present time. If you are interested in the history of homo sapiens, this is the book to read. This book will also be of interest to history lovers.

I enjoyed the stories and the progression of human development. It brought the past to life through emotionally intelligent storytelling. I liked it very much. I highly recommend this one.

In MIXED HARVEST, Rob Swigart offers short stories illustrating what it might have been like to shift from a hunter-gatherer way of life to a staid, sedentary way of living. I appreciated the insights from the art and science of archeology and fact-based exploration and the way that Swigart projected his own ideas about people and culture and history -- but wound up wanting more, feeling a bit argumentative about what was highlighted and explored. Perhaps that is not entirely a bad thing, because I am motivated to learn more history and think further about how we arrived where we are, living as we do, however, that was what I wanted from this book. I received a reader copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for my unbiased opinion.

Mixed Harvest: Stories from the Human Past by Rob Swigart is a lovely book, which explores the transition of humankind from being hunter-gatherers to agricultural societies. It’s hard to place it in a genre: is it non–fiction? Historical fiction? Historical non-fiction?

It is a short story collection with stories that tell how human beings slowly evolved, changed and learned about their world. Every story adds new elements to the overarching theme, from religion to art, tribes to city-states.

I enjoyed the archaeological facts that start and end every chapter as well as the charming stories. I can definitely recommend Mixed Harvest to anybody interested in prehistory and human development.

Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a masterpiece of History. The Sedentary Divide id the center of this almost textbook like account of how humans stopped chasing their food and sat down to a life of agriculture at their finger tips. Swigart lets his journalistic talent shine through thousands of years of how we developed into a cultivating species. A transition that still influences everything from the price of food to gender roles.

Sorry--I didn't download this fast enough. Somehow I missed its availability. Looks good and the type of story I enjoy. I can see why I selected it.

I really wanted to like this book because I am fascinated by the evolution and migration of our humans but for me I didn’t enjoy the fact that there are just snippets of life. I did however like that the author gave explanations after each short story. I would have enjoyed it more had the explanation preceded the story because I think it would have helped me to make more sense of each story. I‘m sorry to say I wouldn’t recommend this book.

MIXED HARVEST takes current discoveries of archeological significance and builds a fictional story around the history that brought the item to this point in time. It's a small taste of some fascinating tales that bring history to life for so many that find it boring. Yes, the stories are fiction but they have one foot in the scientific facts while the other foot lets us glimpse how things might have been.

This book should have pushed all the right buttons for me—a former board member of archeological and paleontological organizations, an avid reader of paleoanthropology, and an all-around prehistoric civilization nerd. I have long arguments with friends about which was more revolutionary: the agricultural revolution of several millennia BCE or the industrial revolution in our more recent past. (I always vote for the agricultural one.) So, I should have been thrilled with this book!
Unfortunately, Mixed Harvest is an uneven review of the movement of human organization from hunter-gatherer to urbanite, with the thematic emphasis on what urbanization has wrought. First, a little more scholarship and a lot less fiction would have improved this book. Mr. Swigert is a journalist, and his efforts at fictionalization are amateurish. While I commend the author’s intent—as I see it: to personalize and bring to life important shifts in ritual, belief, settlement, political organization and religion—the book ends with overly long and not particularly new or enlightening fictionalizations of stories of early settlements and their legends: Catalhoyuk and Uruk.
Lacking temporal or geographical specificity (available in the archeological record) and lacking either a fiction writer’s or academic’s specificity in language, the narrative was to me, maddening. For example: “Grandmothers in many cultures were the midwives. Aiding in this difficult passage is one important reason human females, unlike most other mammals, live long past their childbearing years.” This description of the “grandmother hypothesis” indicates either a lack of understanding of how evolution works, or, perhaps more likely, the kind of imprecise language and syntax that plagues the book’s non-fiction sections. Human grandmothers don’t live past their childbearing years so that they can help with their daughters’ delivery. Evolution doesn’t do things for a “reason.” Evolution is the result of an accident or a series of accidents in the genome. At some point in our history, some mutation or mutations enabled longer life. Women who carried that mutation could be there to help with childbirth. And their offspring and their offspring’s offspring would inherit the longer-life genes. Grandmothers, then, became an engine in the explosion of human population. Evolution, in other words, isn’t teleological. It does not reason. It does not do things for a reason.
I believe Melvin Konner’s “The Tangled Wing” and nearly any book of the late Stephen Jay Gould can provide someone interested in this topic considerably better written and more precise evaluations of the phenomena of the rise of agriculture and its result, the development of cities.

This is a series of short stories based on fossils and other archaeological evidence from prehistoric to Sumarian sites. The stories are fictional explanations that may have lead to that evidence. Each short story is bookended by nonfictional descriptions. Some of the stories were interesting but I found myself wishing for a more in-depth examination of the archaeology. Little attention was paid to overpopulation and resource depletion. .

Thank you to Netgalley for allowing me the opportunity to review this book.

I enjoyed reading the stories and the progression of human development. It brought the past alive through informational yet emotionally intelligent storytelling combined with its non fiction explanation.

Mixed Harvest brings short stories and insights about early prehistoric and early historic humans. The stories themselves are engaging and really bring the past alive in a way I never considered before.

The stories are fictional, but based on actual archeological discoveries and anthropological insights. In-between the stories the author provides more information on the time and places discussed.

I really enjoyed the entire book, and would love to read more stories about early historical cultures and pre-historic societies.

Rob Swigart is a journalist and technical writer, who wrote this book, with a deep search into human development through history. This is a beautiful and intellectual story collection, each story remakes interesting aspects of humanity and how they acquired a deep understanding of the world.
The research work that the author did to recognize how they lived and their way of acting in those millennial times are remarkable through the stories, the most interesting thing is that as he tells in the stories he captures my imagination as if I had lived during that time.
Swigart's work is so impeccable, that it manages to bring its characters to life as if they were real as if they were in life because he shows them deeply from their feelings and thoughts, that's why I am giving 5 stars to this book.