An edition of The world until yesterday (2012)

World until Yesterday

What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?

  • 3.6 (7 ratings) ·
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World until Yesterday
Jared Diamond, Efrén del Valle ...
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  • 3.6 (7 ratings) ·
  • 44 Want to read
  • 2 Currently reading
  • 9 Have read

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Last edited by Lisa
September 24, 2022 | History
An edition of The world until yesterday (2012)

World until Yesterday

What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?

  • 3.6 (7 ratings) ·
  • 44 Want to read
  • 2 Currently reading
  • 9 Have read

Overview: 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.

Publish Date
Language
English
Pages
512

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Previews available in: English

Edition Availability
Cover of: World until Yesterday
World until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?
2014, Penguin Books, Limited
in English
Cover of: The world until yesterday
Cover of: The world until yesterday
The world until yesterday
2012, Viking
in English
Cover of: The World Until Yesterday
The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?
2012, Viking
hardcover in English

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Book Details


Classifications

Library of Congress
HM621

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL28508820M
ISBN 13
9780141024486

Source records

Better World Books record

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History

Download catalog record: RDF / JSON / OPDS | Wikipedia citation
September 24, 2022 Edited by Lisa Merge works
August 18, 2020 Edited by Tom Morris merge authors
August 3, 2020 Created by ImportBot Imported from Better World Books record