Description
Author of the bestsellers Collapse and Guns, Germs, and Steel, returns to our past in search of a better future. Diamond offers a mesmerizing picture of human life as it had been for millions of years, glimpsed in modern or recent traditional societies. He neither romanticizes the societies nor scorns them as primitive. Instead, he shows how traditional societies constitute thousands of natural experiments in how to solve universal human problems, experiments that we could never carry out on ourselves and our families.
These natural experiments suggest better ways in which to raise our children, afford better lives for our elderly, think clearly about dangers, resolve disputes, and avoid the diseases of civilization. Drawing on five decades of his own fieldwork in New Guinea, as well as evidence from elsewhere around the globe, Diamond shows how today's traditional societies help us understand our past and improve our present lives.
ISBN: 9780143124405
