An Analysis Of Jared Diamonds Guns Germs Steel

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An Analysis of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs & Steel

Author : Riley Quinn
Publisher : CRC Press
ISBN 13 : 1351350501
Total Pages : 98 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (513 download)

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Book Synopsis An Analysis of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs & Steel by : Riley Quinn

Download or read book An Analysis of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs & Steel written by Riley Quinn and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 98 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his 1997 work Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond marshals evidence from five continents and across 13,000 years of human history in an attempt to answer the question of why that history unfolded so differently in various parts of the globe. His results offer new explanations for why the unequal divisions of power and wealth so familiar to us today came into existence – and have persisted. Balancing materials drawn from a vast range of sources, addressing core problems that have fascinated historians, anthropologists, biologists and geographers alike – and blending his analysis to create a compelling narrative that became an international best-seller and reached a broad general market – required a mastery of the critical thinking skill of reasoning that few other scholars can rival. Diamond’s reasoning skills allow him to persuade his readers of the value of his interdisciplinary approach and produce well-structured arguments that keep them turning pages even as he refocuses his analysis from one disparate example to another. Diamond adds to that a spectacular ability to grasp the meaning of the available evidence produced by scholars in those widely different disciplines – making Guns, Germs and Steel equally valuable as an exercise in high-level interpretation.

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

Author : Jared Diamond
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393069222
Total Pages : 532 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (93 download)

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Book Synopsis Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by : Jared Diamond

Download or read book Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies written by Jared Diamond and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1999-04-17 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Fascinating.... Lays a foundation for understanding human history."—Bill Gates In this "artful, informative, and delightful" (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books) book, Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed religion --as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war --and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, the Rhone-Poulenc Prize, and the Commonwealth club of California's Gold Medal.

Critical Summary of Guns, Germs, and Steel - The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond

Author : Dennis Bergot
Publisher : GRIN Verlag
ISBN 13 : 3638254704
Total Pages : 16 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (382 download)

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Book Synopsis Critical Summary of Guns, Germs, and Steel - The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond by : Dennis Bergot

Download or read book Critical Summary of Guns, Germs, and Steel - The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond written by Dennis Bergot and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2004-02-17 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject Economy - Environment economics, grade: 1,0 (A), University of Hamburg (Centre for Sea and Climate Research), course: Seminar Contemporary Environmental Problems, 4 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: The starting point of Diamond’s book “Guns, Germs, And Steel” is a question he was asked by an indigenious New Guinean friend of his called Yali. His question was: “Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?”1, adressing the obvious inequality in wealth and power of today’s world. With his book, Diamond tries to provide an answer for this question. According to Diamond, the immediate causes for the inequalities in the world today are to be found in the different stages of development between the continents as of around A.D. 1500. By that time, only societies of Eurasia, the landmass that constitutes Asia and Europe, and there especially the Western Europeans, possessed ocean-going ships, population-decimating germs, steel weapons, horses usable for warefare, easy spread of information by an efficient writing system and many other means that come in handy decimating, subjugating or in some cases even exterminating the originial inhabitants of other continents. Diamond calls these advantages the proximate factors of differing developments that led to the inequalities. The book’s title “Guns, Germs, And Steel” can be understood as a summary of these proximate causes. In chapter three of his book, Diamond cites as a prominent example of the inequalities the conquest by the Spaniard Francisco Pizarro and a few hundred soldiers over the Inca emperor Atahuallpa at Cajamarca/Peru in A.D. 1532. The Spanish got there and won because they possessed the above stated proximate factors. He then turns the point around and asks why, for instance, the Native Americans or Aboriginal Australians were not the ones who possessed these proximate factors and used them to conquer Europe. [...]

Upheaval

Author : Jared Diamond
Publisher : Little, Brown
ISBN 13 : 0316409154
Total Pages : 512 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (164 download)

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Book Synopsis Upheaval by : Jared Diamond

Download or read book Upheaval written by Jared Diamond and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2019-05-07 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A "riveting and illuminating" Bill Gates Summer Reading pick about how and why some nations recover from trauma and others don't (Yuval Noah Harari), by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the landmark bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel. In his international bestsellers Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse, Jared Diamond transformed our understanding of what makes civilizations rise and fall. Now, in his third book in this monumental trilogy, he reveals how successful nations recover from crises while adopting selective changes -- a coping mechanism more commonly associated with individuals recovering from personal crises. Diamond compares how six countries have survived recent upheavals -- ranging from the forced opening of Japan by U.S. Commodore Perry's fleet, to the Soviet Union's attack on Finland, to a murderous coup or countercoup in Chile and Indonesia, to the transformations of Germany and Austria after World War Two. Because Diamond has lived and spoken the language in five of these six countries, he can present gut-wrenching histories experienced firsthand. These nations coped, to varying degrees, through mechanisms such as acknowledgment of responsibility, painfully honest self-appraisal, and learning from models of other nations. Looking to the future, Diamond examines whether the United States, Japan, and the whole world are successfully coping with the grave crises they currently face. Can we learn from lessons of the past? Adding a psychological dimension to the in-depth history, geography, biology, and anthropology that mark all of Diamond's books, Upheaval reveals factors influencing how both whole nations and individual people can respond to big challenges. The result is a book epic in scope, but also his most personal yet.

The World Until Yesterday

Author : Jared Diamond
Publisher : Penguin UK
ISBN 13 : 1846148154
Total Pages : 409 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (461 download)

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Book Synopsis The World Until Yesterday by : Jared Diamond

Download or read book The World Until Yesterday written by Jared Diamond and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2013-01-10 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of No.1 international bestseller Collapse, a mesmerizing portrait of the human past that offers profound lessons for how we can live today Visionary, prize-winning author Jared Diamond changed the way we think about the rise and fall of human civilizations with his previous international bestsellers Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse. Now he returns with another epic - and groundbreaking - journey into our rapidly receding past. In The World Until Yesterday, Diamond reveals how traditional societies around the world offer an extraordinary window onto how our ancestors lived for the majority of human history - until virtually yesterday, in evolutionary terms - and provide unique, often overlooked insights into human nature. Drawing extensively on his decades working in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, Diamond explores how tribal societies approach essential human problems, from childrearing to conflict resolution to health, and discovers we have much to learn from traditional ways of life. He unearths remarkable findings - from the reason why modern afflictions like diabetes, obesity and Alzheimer's are virtually non-existent in tribal societies to the surprising benefits of multilingualism. Panoramic in scope and thrillingly original, The World Until Yesterday provides an enthralling first-hand picture of the human past that also suggests profound lessons for how to live well today. Jared Diamond is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the seminal million-copy-bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel, which was named one of TIME's best non-fiction books of all time, and Collapse, a #1 international bestseller. A professor of geography at UCLA and noted polymath, Diamond's work has been influential in the fields of anthropology, biology, ornithology, ecology and history, among others.

Natural Experiments of History

Author : Jared Diamond
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674076729
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis Natural Experiments of History by : Jared Diamond

Download or read book Natural Experiments of History written by Jared Diamond and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-01 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some central questions in the natural and social sciences can't be answered by controlled laboratory experiments, often considered to be the hallmark of the scientific method. This impossibility holds for any science concerned with the past. In addition, many manipulative experiments, while possible, would be considered immoral or illegal. One has to devise other methods of observing, describing, and explaining the world. In the historical disciplines, a fruitful approach has been to use natural experiments or the comparative method. This book consists of eight comparative studies drawn from history, archeology, economics, economic history, geography, and political science. The studies cover a spectrum of approaches, ranging from a non-quantitative narrative style in the early chapters to quantitative statistical analyses in the later chapters. The studies range from a simple two-way comparison of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, which share the island of Hispaniola, to comparisons of 81 Pacific islands and 233 areas of India. The societies discussed are contemporary ones, literate societies of recent centuries, and non-literate past societies. Geographically, they include the United States, Mexico, Brazil, western Europe, tropical Africa, India, Siberia, Australia, New Zealand, and other Pacific islands. In an Afterword, the editors discuss how to cope with methodological problems common to these and other natural experiments of history.

Collapse

Author : Jared Diamond
Publisher : Penguin UK
ISBN 13 : 0141976969
Total Pages : 608 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (419 download)

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Book Synopsis Collapse by : Jared Diamond

Download or read book Collapse written by Jared Diamond and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2013-03-21 with total page 608 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive is a visionary study of the mysterious downfall of past civilizations. Now in a revised edition with a new afterword, Jared Diamond's Collapse uncovers the secret behind why some societies flourish, while others founder - and what this means for our future. What happened to the people who made the forlorn long-abandoned statues of Easter Island? What happened to the architects of the crumbling Maya pyramids? Will we go the same way, our skyscrapers one day standing derelict and overgrown like the temples at Angkor Wat? Bringing together new evidence from a startling range of sources and piecing together the myriad influences, from climate to culture, that make societies self-destruct, Jared Diamond's Collapse also shows how - unlike our ancestors - we can benefit from our knowledge of the past and learn to be survivors. 'A grand sweep from a master storyteller of the human race' - Daily Mail 'Riveting, superb, terrifying' - Observer 'Gripping ... the book fulfils its huge ambition, and Diamond is the only man who could have written it' - Economis 'This book shines like all Diamond's work' - Sunday Times

Summary of Guns, Germs, and Steel

Author : Fastreads
Publisher : Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN 13 : 9781544984230
Total Pages : 48 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (842 download)

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Book Synopsis Summary of Guns, Germs, and Steel by : Fastreads

Download or read book Summary of Guns, Germs, and Steel written by Fastreads and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-03-28 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Don't miss this summary of Jared Diamond's epic research into why some civilizations prosper and conquer, while others wither and disappear. His exhaustive tome, "Guns, Germs, and Steel" delves deep into the differentiating factors affecting humanity around the world since the beginning of recorded history. This FastReads Summary provides full chapter synopses, key takeaways, and analysis to help you cut to the core of this dense text and truly understand what has led society as a whole to where it is today. What Will You Learn from Reading This Book? Where humanity began and how it spread throughout the world What environmental factors affected the development of different societies around the world How agriculture and early food production led to the development of complex societies How large mammal domestication led to the development of infectious diseases that gave colonists an advantage over indigenous peoples How large-scale agriculture allowed societies to support non-food-producing individuals that developed important technologies What happens when two societies with their own agendas come in contact with each other for the first time What we can learn about the current state of the world with the clarity of hindsight that this book provides Book Summary Overview In "Guns, Germs, and Steel" readers have the chance to examine the course of human history on the broadest scale. Starting with the dawn of humanity and our spread out of Africa, Jared Diamond explains how the environmental, geographical, and ecological differences that were endemic to specific parts of the world led to differences in the development of the peoples in those parts of the world. This exhaustive tome leaves no stone unturned as Diamond searches for the answers to questions that have been asked time and again throughout history. Click Buy Now with 1-Click to Own Your Copy Today! Please note: This is a summary, analysis and review of the book and not the original book.

Guns, Germs and Steel

Author : Jared M. Diamond
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 0099302780
Total Pages : 62 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (993 download)

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Book Synopsis Guns, Germs and Steel by : Jared M. Diamond

Download or read book Guns, Germs and Steel written by Jared M. Diamond and published by Random House. This book was released on 1998 with total page 62 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book answers the most obvious, the most important, yet the most difficult question about human history: why history unfolded so differently on different continents. Geography and biography, not race, moulded the contrasting fates of Europeans, Asians

Yali's Question

Author : Frederick Errington
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 9780226217451
Total Pages : 344 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (174 download)

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Book Synopsis Yali's Question by : Frederick Errington

Download or read book Yali's Question written by Frederick Errington and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2004-11-15 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Yali's Question is the story of a remarkable physical and social creation—Ramu Sugar Limited (RSL), a sugar plantation created in a remote part of Papua New Guinea. As an embodiment of imported industrial production, RSL's smoke-belching, steam-shrieking factory and vast fields of carefully tended sugar cane contrast sharply with the surrounding grassland. RSL not only dominates the landscape, but also shapes those culturally diverse thousands who left their homes to work there. To understand the creation of such a startling place, Frederick Errington and Deborah Gewertz explore the perspectives of the diverse participants that had a hand in its creation. In examining these views, they also consider those of Yali, a local Papua New Guinean political leader. Significantly, Yali features not only in the story of RSL, but also in Jared Diamond's Pulitzer Prize winning world history Guns, Germs, and Steel—a history probed through its contrast with RSL's. The authors' disagreement with Diamond stems, not from the generality of his focus and the specificity of theirs, but from a difference in view about how history is made—and from an insistence that those with power be held accountable for affecting history.

Summary and Analysis of Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

Author : Worth Books
Publisher : Open Road Media
ISBN 13 : 1504043103
Total Pages : 33 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (4 download)

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Book Synopsis Summary and Analysis of Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by : Worth Books

Download or read book Summary and Analysis of Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies written by Worth Books and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2016-11-15 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: So much to read, so little time? This brief overview of Guns, Germs, and Steel tells you what you need to know—before or after you read Jared Diamond’s book. Crafted and edited with care, Worth Books set the standard for quality and give you the tools you need to be a well-informed reader. This short summary and analysis of Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond includes: Historical context Chapter-by-chapter summaries Detailed timeline of key events Important quotes Fascinating trivia Glossary of terms Supporting material to enhance your understanding of the original work About Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond: Professor Jared Diamond’s informative and fascinating Pulitzer Prize–winning Guns, Germs, and Steel explores a historic question: Why were the Eurasian peoples able to dominate those from other lands? Diamond argues that it was ecology and geography—not race—that shaped the modern world. Societies that developed in regions with fertile land for farming and that had domesticable plants and animals were able to progress more quickly, thereby creating the tools to conquer preliterate cultures. Drawing on a variety of disciplines—from linguistics, genetics, and epidemiology to biology, anthropology, and technology—Guns, Germs, and Steel offers an eloquently argued view of the development of human societies. The summary and analysis in this ebook are intended to complement your reading experience and bring you closer to a great work of nonfiction.

Guns, Germs & Steel

Author : Riley Quinn
Publisher : CRC Press
ISBN 13 : 1351352296
Total Pages : 98 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (513 download)

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Book Synopsis Guns, Germs & Steel by : Riley Quinn

Download or read book Guns, Germs & Steel written by Riley Quinn and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 98 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his 1997 work Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond marshals evidence from five continents and across 13,000 years of human history in an attempt to answer the question of why that history unfolded so differently in various parts of the globe. His results offer new explanations for why the unequal divisions of power and wealth so familiar to us today came into existence – and have persisted. Balancing materials drawn from a vast range of sources, addressing core problems that have fascinated historians, anthropologists, biologists and geographers alike – and blending his analysis to create a compelling narrative that became an international best-seller and reached a broad general market – required a mastery of the critical thinking skill of reasoning that few other scholars can rival. Diamond’s reasoning skills allow him to persuade his readers of the value of his interdisciplinary approach and produce well-structured arguments that keep them turning pages even as he refocuses his analysis from one disparate example to another. Diamond adds to that a spectacular ability to grasp the meaning of the available evidence produced by scholars in those widely different disciplines – making Guns, Germs and Steel equally valuable as an exercise in high-level interpretation.

Oration on the Dignity of Man

Author : Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1596983019
Total Pages : 55 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (969 download)

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Book Synopsis Oration on the Dignity of Man by : Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola

Download or read book Oration on the Dignity of Man written by Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-03-27 with total page 55 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An ardent treatise for the Dignity of Man, which elevates Humanism to a truly Christian level, making this writing as pertinent today as it was in the Fifteenth Century.

Is Geography Destiny?

Author : John Luke Gallup
Publisher : World Bank Publications
ISBN 13 : 0821383671
Total Pages : 186 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (213 download)

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Book Synopsis Is Geography Destiny? by : John Luke Gallup

Download or read book Is Geography Destiny? written by John Luke Gallup and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2003-08-04 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For decades, the prevailing sentiment was that, since geography is unchangeable, there is no reason why public policies should take it into account. In fact, charges that geographic interpretations of development were deterministic, or even racist, made the subject a virtual taboo in academic and policymaking circles alike. 'Is Geography Destiny?' challenges that premise and joins a growing body of literature studying the links between geography and development. Focusing on Latin America, the book argues that based on a better understanding of geography, public policy can help control or channel its influence toward the goals of economic and social development.

The Third Chimpanzee

Author : Jared M. Diamond
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 0060845503
Total Pages : 434 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (68 download)

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Book Synopsis The Third Chimpanzee by : Jared M. Diamond

Download or read book The Third Chimpanzee written by Jared M. Diamond and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2006-01-03 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Development of an Extraordinary Species We human beings share 98 percent of our genes with chimpanzees. Yet humans are the dominant species on the planet -- having founded civilizations and religions, developed intricate and diverse forms of communication, learned science, built cities, and created breathtaking works of art -- while chimps remain animals concerned primarily with the basic necessities of survival. What is it about that two percent difference in DNA that has created such a divergence between evolutionary cousins? In this fascinating, provocative, passionate, funny, endlessly entertaining work, renowned Pulitzer Prize–winning author and scientist Jared Diamond explores how the extraordinary human animal, in a remarkably short time, developed the capacity to rule the world . . . and the means to irrevocably destroy it.

Why Nations Fail

Author : Daron Acemoglu
Publisher : Crown Currency
ISBN 13 : 0307719235
Total Pages : 546 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (77 download)

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Book Synopsis Why Nations Fail by : Daron Acemoglu

Download or read book Why Nations Fail written by Daron Acemoglu and published by Crown Currency. This book was released on 2012-03-20 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are? Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence? Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories. Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including: - China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West? - Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority? - What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions? Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world.

The Secret of Our Success

Author : Joseph Henrich
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691178437
Total Pages : 464 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis The Secret of Our Success by : Joseph Henrich

Download or read book The Secret of Our Success written by Joseph Henrich and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-17 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How our collective intelligence has helped us to evolve and prosper Humans are a puzzling species. On the one hand, we struggle to survive on our own in the wild, often failing to overcome even basic challenges, like obtaining food, building shelters, or avoiding predators. On the other hand, human groups have produced ingenious technologies, sophisticated languages, and complex institutions that have permitted us to successfully expand into a vast range of diverse environments. What has enabled us to dominate the globe, more than any other species, while remaining virtually helpless as lone individuals? This book shows that the secret of our success lies not in our innate intelligence, but in our collective brains—on the ability of human groups to socially interconnect and learn from one another over generations. Drawing insights from lost European explorers, clever chimpanzees, mobile hunter-gatherers, neuroscientific findings, ancient bones, and the human genome, Joseph Henrich demonstrates how our collective brains have propelled our species' genetic evolution and shaped our biology. Our early capacities for learning from others produced many cultural innovations, such as fire, cooking, water containers, plant knowledge, and projectile weapons, which in turn drove the expansion of our brains and altered our physiology, anatomy, and psychology in crucial ways. Later on, some collective brains generated and recombined powerful concepts, such as the lever, wheel, screw, and writing, while also creating the institutions that continue to alter our motivations and perceptions. Henrich shows how our genetics and biology are inextricably interwoven with cultural evolution, and how culture-gene interactions launched our species on an extraordinary evolutionary trajectory. Tracking clues from our ancient past to the present, The Secret of Our Success explores how the evolution of both our cultural and social natures produce a collective intelligence that explains both our species' immense success and the origins of human uniqueness.