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The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?

The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?

The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?

The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?

by Diamond, Jared M

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  • good
  • Hardcover
Condition
Good
ISBN 10
0670024813
ISBN 13
9780670024810
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About This Item

Viking, 2012. Hardcover. Good. Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less.Dust jacket quality is not guaranteed.

Synopsis

The bestselling author of Collapse and Guns, Germs and Steel surveys the history of human societies to answer the question: What can we learn from traditional societies that can make the world a better place for all of us? 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. Provocative, enlightening, and entertaining, The World Until Yesterday is an essential and fascinating read.

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Details

Bookseller
ThriftBooks US (US)
Bookseller's Inventory #
G0670024813I3N00
Title
The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?
Author
Diamond, Jared M
Format/Binding
Hardcover
Book Condition
Used - Good
Quantity Available
3
ISBN 10
0670024813
ISBN 13
9780670024810
Publisher
Viking
Place of Publication
New York
Date Published
2012

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ThriftBooks

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Seattle, Washington

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Glossary

Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:

Spine
The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
Jacket
Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...

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