The author argues that much of early human history, especially aspects that don’t support the idea of states as “civilizing forces”, is missing from traditional historical records. Events like migration, rebellion, or resistance to state control often left few physical traces or were deliberately ignored in written sources.

By comparing the fossil fuel era to the entire span of human history, the author shows how recent industrialization really is. Even though it was a short period, it changed societies and ecosystems greatly.

He says that empires justified their violence because they made others look like savages.

This shows how unknown and uncertain people were about early population estimates. Wengrow uses this to show that most of our information about empires are just guesses instead of facts.