Publisher's Synopsis
After analyzing twelve ancient primary civilizations/proto-civilizations using metrics derived from five primary civilizations that successfully developed, at least circumstantially, a nascent medical profession, Dr. Adams concludes that the overwhelming cause of obstruction to initiating an effective medical practice and to progress in general was the egalitarian kinship. This explains how seemingly benign and stable civilizations could persist unchanged for a thousand years with no discernible improvement in the human condition, evidence being life expectancies for the common man and woman averaging little more than thirty years and, with no evidence of any formal medical practice, no alleviation of misery and premature death from trauma, disease and difficult birthing. Escape from egalitarianism was made possible in great part because commercialization contributed to severing of traditional egalitarian bonds. It is proposed that medical practices emerged in the five successful primary civilizations during a transient period in early urbanization known as "settlement hierarchy," a spontaneously devised apolitical hierarchy supporting an enlarging and prospering population. Political authoritarianism (as described in volume 1 of this series) and egalitarian authoritarianism (as described in this volume) have, over thousands of years, obstructed repeated attempts by mankind to improve its circumstances, thereby contravening the natural law of our species and leading to a Sisyphean recycling of civilizations. Global progress today finds its origins in Western culture, but the distinction between free and non-free societies has been camouflaged as inventions are stolen, copied, or purchased and then implemented by authoritarian cultures. Bleak prospects face humanity as power is willfully ceded to authoritarian governance.
William H. Adams, MD, FACP, DCMT (London), began his search for the natural state of medical practice while on the staff of a large municipal hospital in New York City. Dissatisfied by aspects of medical practice as incorporated in recent decades, he continued the search after retirement which, after twenty years, has culminated in this three-volume testimonial to the role of group freedom in human progress.
