The World Until Yesterday – Jared Diamond
For most of human history, people lived in small tribal societies, without writing, states or modern technology. In The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?, Jared Diamond, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel, asks what those societies can teach us today.
Drawing on decades of fieldwork in New Guinea and research on traditional peoples around the world, from the Kalahari to the Amazon and the Arctic, Diamond compares how traditional and modern societies handle the basic challenges of life. He examines how they resolve disputes and wage war, raise children, care for the elderly, deal with danger, practice religion, learn multiple languages and maintain health through diet and lifestyle.
Diamond does not romanticize traditional life, and he is frank about its hardships, including violence and high mortality. But he also finds valuable lessons, such as approaches to conflict resolution that focus on restoring relationships, child-rearing practices that encourage independence, respect for elders, multilingualism and a healthy wariness of risk, which he calls constructive paranoia.
Personal, wide-ranging and full of fascinating anecdotes, The World Until Yesterday invites readers to reflect on their own lives and consider which traditional practices might enrich modern society.
It is an engaging read for anyone interested in anthropology, history, psychology and the long story of how humans have lived.
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