Robert Kesterson wrote:
>> "The more people clustered
>> together, the more pest-ridden and poorly fed they
>> became"
>
> I don't doubt that a bit.
Another book that I enjoyed very much was "The Long Summer" by Brian 
Fagan: 
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465022820/sr=1-1/qid=1137172272/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-8040023-6992700?%5Fencoding=UTF8
He's an anthropologist, and not specifically a proponent of Paleo diet 
(I have no idea of his position on the issue.) However, he tells the 
story of how civilization arose and the role that climate played in 
making it a desirable change (Which is why, he proposes, it happened in 
so many places all at about the same time.) Part of the discussion is 
the trade-offs involved, e.g. the ability to feed a whole lot of people 
vs. the ability to feed a few very well. Also the shifts in the roles of 
women and men (Women traditionally processed plant foods while men 
hunted. When, for example, people started subsisting on harvested 
pistachios women got a whole lot more busy than they had been before.) 
And the change from nomadic lifestyle to semi-sedentary (i.e. staying in 
the same place for a significant part of the year, building permanent 
structures, etc.) Very good read, fills an important gap in the diet 
literature because it explains not only how things got this way but what 
we know about why.