The World Until Yesterday
What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?
About the book
Jared Diamond compares modern Western life with traditional societies that offer a glimpse of how humans lived for most of their past. He draws on decades of his own field work in the Pacific islands and adds evidence from the Inuit, Amazonian Indians and the Kalahari San. He does not romanticize them and admits some of their practices shock, yet he argues their answers to universal problems hold lessons. Topics include settling disputes, caring for the elderly, raising children, handling risk, staying physically fit, the benefits of speaking several languages and the value of eating less salt. The popular science book appeared in 2012 and became a New York Times best seller.
Bill Gates put it on his list of the best books he read in 2013, saying it falls short of Guns, Germs, and Steel but praising its anecdotes about hunter-gatherer life and its hunt for practices worth borrowing, without romanticizing tribal life.
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This book has 1 recommendation
Bill Gates (CEO/Microsoft)
It’s not as good as Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel. But then, few books are. Diamond finds fascinating anecdotes about what life is like for hunter-gatherers and asks which ones might apply to our modern lifestyles. He doesn’t make some grand pronouncement or romanticize tribal life. He just wants to find the best practices and share them.
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