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Renowned anthropologist Lewis H. Morgan examines the origins and history of humanity, sharing abundant insights on the conditions of primitive society.

Of particular interest to Morgan is the gradual process by which humans organized into civil societies. Examining a range of contrasting civilizations, from the Mayans to the Iroquois to the Romans, the author attempts to arrive at commonalities in how these peoples went from a primitive and barbaric early existence to a relatively civilized height, whereupon their greatest achievements left their mark.

For the author, human civilization progressed in three broad stages - savagery, wherein hunter-gatherer behaviors, crude language and inbreeding is prevalent; barbarism, wherein the first centralized settlements and signs of organizational military and political hierarchy appear; and civilization, where humans are at their most organized and capable of great advances in science, wealth, culture and the general well-being of the population.

Although many of Morgan's points are speculative and based purely off of sources as diverse and disparate as Christian missionary accounts of tribes and histories dating to antiquity, his is the among the first works of anthropology which seek to boldly tackle the questions of human history. Though many ideas herein have been disproven or discredited, they served as the foundation upon which modern-day anthropology as a formal discipline supported by sound evidence was built.