The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies

The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?
Jared Diamond (Author)
(60)

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Ancient

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. A characteristically provocative, enlightening, and entertaining book, The World Until Yesterday will be essential and delightful reading.

 

• Rank: #3065 in eBooks
• Published on: 2012-12-31
• Released on: 2012-12-31
• Format: Kindle eBook
• Number of items: 1

Description #1 by nookibooks.info:

"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 yesterdayin evolutionary timewhen 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 yearsa past that has mostly vanishedand 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 societiesafter all, we are shocked by some of their practicesbut 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. A characteristically provocative, enlightening, and entertaining book, The World Until Yesterday will be essential and delightful reading.Print Length: 512 pages Publisher: VIKING ADULT (December 31, 2012) Sold by: Penguin PublishingLanguage: EnglishASIN: B008EKOO46"

Description #2 by daedalusbooks.com:

Most of us take for granted such aspects of our society as telecommunication, literacy, even obesity. Yet for millions of years human society had none of these things, as the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse reminds us here; in evolutionary terms our bodies and social practices are often ill-suited to the modern world. Following decades of fieldwork among such isolated traditional societies as the New Guinea Highlanders, Jared Diamond gives us a mesmerizing firsthand picture of humanity just yesterday. Though not romanticizing traditional societies-indeed, some of their practices are shocking to us-he finds that their solutions to universal human problems of child rearing, elder care, dispute resolution, risk, and physical fitness have much to teach us. A penetrating look at the ways we have evolved ... comparing practices of traditional societies and modern and industrialized societies. Diamond draws on his fieldwork in New Guinea, the Amazon, Kalahari, and other areas to compare the best and most questionable customs and practices of societies past and present. Diamond does not idealize traditional societies, with smaller populations and more interest in maintaining group harmony than modern societies organized by governments seeking to maintain order, but he does emphasize troubling trends in declining health and fitness as industrialization has spread to newly developing nations. In this fascinating book, Diamond brings fresh perspective to historic and contemporary ways of life with an eye toward those that are likely to enhance our future.-Booklist

Description #3 by Barnes & Noble - source media:

Categories: Staff Picks: Books We're Talking About, Social evolution, Social history. Contributors: Jared Diamond - Author. Format: Audiobook