The World Until Yesterday
22/3/13 12:30![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darkemeraldsI just finished listening to The World Until Yesterday by Jared Diamond, he of Guns, Germs and Steel fame. It's...I'm not quite sure what it is. Four books in one, I guess. Lots of cultural anthropology about New Guinea, a diatribe about diet and exercise, a warning about not romanticizing small non-state societies, and a bit of a rant about logical vs illogical safety precautions.
I think I enjoyed it despite its multiple personality disorder. Diamond makes a fairly good case for selectively adopting the wisdom of our hunter-gatherer brethren into our WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) lives: aspects of their child-rearing methods, elder care, and (surprisingly) safety standards, and a big chunk of their diet.
The World Until Yesterday is alternately amusing, interesting, and tiresome--really a mixed bag--but overall worth a read/listen if you're into this kind of "let's look at humanity's long history and draw some conclusions for modern life" type of thing, which I am.
The audiobook is very competently and unobtrusively narrated by Jay Snyder.
I think I enjoyed it despite its multiple personality disorder. Diamond makes a fairly good case for selectively adopting the wisdom of our hunter-gatherer brethren into our WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) lives: aspects of their child-rearing methods, elder care, and (surprisingly) safety standards, and a big chunk of their diet.
The World Until Yesterday is alternately amusing, interesting, and tiresome--really a mixed bag--but overall worth a read/listen if you're into this kind of "let's look at humanity's long history and draw some conclusions for modern life" type of thing, which I am.
The audiobook is very competently and unobtrusively narrated by Jay Snyder.
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