About the book
Anthropologist James Suzman draws on some 25 years of fieldwork to portray the Bushmen of southern Africa, described as the original affluent society. The Kalahari Bushmen have lived in the region for close to two hundred thousand years as hunters and gatherers who worked only as much as they needed to in a harsh desert. Suzman introduces individual members of the community and describes what happens as the modern global economy collides with the oldest foraging society on earth. Their experience raises questions about how people today think about wealth, work, equality, time and contentment.
Yuval Noah Harari endorsed it, praising how Suzman charts the hard shift of Namibian foragers from relative affluence to present-day poverty while avoiding both modern conceit and romantic fantasy.
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This book has 1 recommendation
Yuval Noah Harari (Historian)
An insightful and well-written book, describing the hard transition of foraging communities in Namibia from relative affluence during the Stone Age to contemporary poverty and misery. Avoiding both modern conceits and romantic fantasies, Suzman chronicles how economics and politics have finally conquered some of the last outposts of hunter-gatherers, and how much humankind can still learn from the disappearing way of life of the most marginalized communities on earth.
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