The bestselling author of Collapse and Guns, Germs and Steel
surveys the history of human societies to answer the question: What
can we learn from traditional societies that can make the world a
better place for all of us? "As he did in his Pulitzer
Prize-winning Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond continues to
make us think with his mesmerizing and absorbing new book."
Bookpage Most of us take for granted the features of our modern
society, from air travel and telecommunications to literacy and
obesity. Yet for nearly all of its six million years of existence,
human society had none of these things. While the gulf that divides
us from our primitive ancestors may seem unbridgeably wide, we can
glimpse much of our former lifestyle in those largely traditional
societies still or recently in existence. Societies like those of
the New Guinea Highlanders remind us that it was only yesterday-in
evolutionary time-when everything changed and that we moderns still
possess bodies and social practices often better adapted to
traditional than to modern conditions.The World Until Yesterday
provides a mesmerizing firsthand picture of the human past as it
had been for millions of years-a past that has mostly vanished-and
considers what the differences between that past and our present
mean for our lives today. This is Jared Diamond's most personal
book to date, as he draws extensively from his decades of field
work in the Pacific islands, as well as evidence from Inuit,
Amazonian Indians, Kalahari San people, and others. Diamond doesn't
romanticize traditional societies-after all, we are shocked by some
of their practices-but he finds that their solutions to universal
human problems such as child rearing, elder care, dispute
resolution, risk, and physical fitness have much to teach us.
Provocative, enlightening, and entertaining, The World Until
Yesterday is an essential and fascinating read.
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