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Where There Be Humans
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Book Synopsis Where There Be Humans by : Rebekah L. Purdy
Download or read book Where There Be Humans written by Rebekah L. Purdy and published by Entangled: Teen. This book was released on 2020-06-01 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sixteen-year-old Ivy Archer is arguably the best warrior-in-training Gob Hollow has ever seen. Yet everyone—except her best friend she suddenly has other feelings for—looks down on her because she's only half goblin. She’s always suspected her other half might be human. But humans, Ivy’s been told, aren’t real... When the prince of their kingdom is taken for ransom, it’s Ivy's big chance to prove her worth. And when she learns his captors are human, the rescue mission becomes personal. The stories were clearly wrong, and now she has a chance to find the truth about her lineage—if she survives. With her best-friend-turned-crush and a small band of warriors, Ivy sets out to find the prince and her human family. But the answers lie within secrets...and conspiracies run far deeper than she ever imagined.
Download or read book The Humans written by Matt Haig and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-07-02 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bestselling, award-winning author of The Midnight Library offers his funniest, most devastating dark comedy yet, a “silly, sad, suspenseful, and soulful” (Philadelphia Inquirer) novel that’s “full of heart” (Entertainment Weekly). When an extra-terrestrial visitor arrives on Earth, his first impressions of the human species are less than positive. Taking the form of Professor Andrew Martin, a prominent mathematician at Cambridge University, the visitor is eager to complete the gruesome task assigned him and hurry home to his own utopian planet, where everyone is omniscient and immortal. He is disgusted by the way humans look, what they eat, their capacity for murder and war, and is equally baffled by the concepts of love and family. But as time goes on, he starts to realize there may be more to this strange species than he had thought. Disguised as Martin, he drinks wine, reads poetry, develops an ear for rock music, and a taste for peanut butter. Slowly, unexpectedly, he forges bonds with Martin’s family. He begins to see hope and beauty in the humans’ imperfection, and begins to question the very mission that brought him there. Praised by The New York Times as a “novelist of great seriousness and talent,” author Matt Haig delivers an unlikely story about human nature and the joy found in the messiness of life on Earth. The Humans is a funny, compulsively readable tale that playfully and movingly explores the ultimate subject—ourselves.
Book Synopsis The World Without Us by : Alan Weisman
Download or read book The World Without Us written by Alan Weisman and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2008-08-05 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A penetrating take on how our planet would respond without the relentless pressure of the human presence
Book Synopsis Earth in Human Hands by : David Grinspoon
Download or read book Earth in Human Hands written by David Grinspoon and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2016-12-06 with total page 519 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NASA Astrobiologist and renowned scientist Dr. David Grinspoon brings readers an optimistic message about humanity's future in the face of climate change. For the first time in Earth's history, our planet is experiencing a confluence of rapidly accelerating changes prompted by one species: humans. Climate change is only the most visible of the modifications we've made--up until this point, inadvertently--to the planet. And our current behavior threatens not only our own future but that of countless other creatures. By comparing Earth's story to those of other planets, astrobiologist David Grinspoon shows what a strange and novel development it is for a species to evolve to build machines, and ultimately, global societies with world-shaping influence. Without minimizing the challenges of the next century, Grinspoon suggests that our present moment is not only one of peril, but also great potential, especially when viewed from a 10,000-year perspective. Our species has surmounted the threat of extinction before, thanks to our innate ingenuity and ability to adapt, and there's every reason to believe we can do so again. Our challenge now is to awaken to our role as a force of planetary change, and to grow into this task. We must become graceful planetary engineers, conscious shapers of our environment and caretakers of Earth's biosphere. This is a perspective that begs us to ask not just what future do we want to avoid, but what do we seek to build? What kind of world do we want? Are humans the worst thing or the best thing to ever happen to our planet? Today we stand at a pivotal juncture, and the answer will depend on the choices we make.
Download or read book The Mount written by Carol Emshwiller and published by Small Beer Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: * Philip K. Dick Award Winner * Best of the Year:Locus, Village Voice, San Francisco Chronicle, Book Magazine * Nominated for the Impac Award Charley is an athlete. He wants to grow up to be the fastest runner in the world, like his father. He wants to be painted crossing the finishing line, in his racing silks, with a medal around his neck. Charley lives in a stable. He isn''t a runner, he''s a mount. He belongs to a Hoot: The Hoots are alien invaders. Charley hasn''t seen his mother for years, and his father is hiding out in the mountains somewhere, with the other Free Humans. The Hoots own the world, but the humans want it back. Charley knows how to be a good mount, but now he''s going to have to learn how to be a human being. "I''ve been a fan of Carol Emshwiller''s since the wonderfulCarmen Dog. The Mount is a terrific novel, at once an adventure story and a meditation on the psychology of freedom and slavery. It''s literally haunting (days after finishing it, I still think about all the terrible poetry of the Hoot/Sam relationship) and hypnotic. I''m honored to have gotten an early look at it." --Glen David Gold "Carol Emshwiller''sThe Mount is a wicked book. Like Harlan Ellison''s darkest visions, Emshwiller writes in a voice that reminds us of the golden season when speculative fiction was daring and unsettling. Dystopian, weird, comedic as if the Marquis de Sade had joined Monty Python, and ultimately scary,The Mounttakes us deep into another reality. Our world suddenly seems wrought with terrible ironies and a severe kind of beauty. When we are the mounts, who--or what--is riding us? --Luis Alberto Urrea "We are all Mounts and so should read this book like an instruction manual that could help save our lives. That it is also a beautiful funny novel is the usual bonus you get by reading Carol Emshwiller. She always writes them that way." --Kim Stanley Robinson "This novel is like a tesseract, I started it and thought, ah, I see what she''s doing. But then the dimensions unfolded and somehow it ended up being about so much more." --Maureen F. McHugh "The Mount is so extraordinary as to be unpraiseable by a mortal such as I. I had to keep putting it down because it was so disturbing then picking it up because it was so amazing. A postmodernist would call it The Eros of Hegemony, but I''m no postmodernist. Nearly every sentence is simultaneously hilarious, prophetic, and disturbing. This person needs to be really, really famous." --Paul Ingram, Prairie Lights Bookstore "Brilliantly conceived and painfully acute in its delineation of the complex relationships between masters and slaves, pets and owners, the served and the serving, this poetic, funny and above all humane novel deserves to be read and cherished as a fundamental fable for our material-minded times." --Publishers Weekly "Adult/High School - This veteran science-fiction writer is known for original plots and characters, and her latest novel does not disappoint, offering an extraordinary, utterly alien, and thoroughly convincing culture set in the not-too-distant future. Emshwiller brings readers immediately into the action, gradually revealing the takeover of Earth by the Hoots, otherworldly beings with superior intelligence and technology. Humans have become the Hoots'' "mounts," and, in the case of the superior Seattle bloodline, valuable racing stock. Most mounts are well off, as the Hoots constantly remind them, and treated kindly by affectionate owners who use punishment poles as rarely as possible. No one agrees more than principal narrator Charley, a privileged young Seattle whose rider-in-training will someday rule the world. The adolescent mount''s dream is of bringing honor to his beloved Little Master by becoming a great champion like Beauty, his sire, whose portrait decorates many Hoot walls. When Charley learns that his father now leads the renegade bands called Wilds, he and Little Master flee. This complex and compelling blend of tantalizing themes offers numerous possibilities for speculation and discussion, whether among friends or in the classroom." --School Library Journal "Emshwiller''s prose is beautiful" --Laura Miller,Salon "The Mountis a brilliant book. But be warned: It takes root in the mind and unleashes aftershocks at inopportune moments." --The Women''s Review of Books "Carol Emshwiller has been writing fantasy, speculative and science fiction for many years; she has a dedicated cult following and has been an influence on a number of today''s top writers.... it is very easy to fall into the rhythm of Emshwiller''s poetic and smooth sentences." --Review of Contemporary Fiction "Emshwiller''s themes--the allure of submission, the temptations of complicity, the perverse nature of compassion--are not usual fare in novels of resistance and revolt, and her strikingly imaginative novel continues to surpass our expectations to the very last page." --The Philadelphia Inquirer "Both fantastical and unnerving in its familiarity. And like her work in romance and westerns, its genre-twisting plot resists easy classification." --The Village Voice "Emshwiller uses a deceptively simple narrative voice that givesThe Mount the style of a young-adult novel. But there''s much going on beneath the surface of this narrative, including oblique flashes of humor and artfully articulated moments of psychological insight. The Mount emerges as one of the season''s unexpected small pleasures." --San Francisco Chronicle "A memorable alien-invasion scenario, a wild adventure, and a reflection on the dynamics of freedom and slavery." --Booklist "A brilliant piece of work." --Bookslut "...a beautifully written allegorical tale full of hope that even the most unenlightened souls can shrug off the bonds of internalized oppression and finally see the light." --BookPage "A fable/fantasy/cautionary tale along the lines of, say,Animal Farm. It''s the story of Charlie, a preadolescent human who''s being used as a horse by shoulder-riding alien invaders known as Hoots. Charlie wants nothing more than to become a great Mount, a loyal slave and servant, until his father, a renegade Mount who has fled from the Hoots and now lives in the mountains, comes to take him away. Like so much of Emshwiller''s work,The Mount asks difficult questions--in this case, What is freedom? The issue is particularly appropriate at a time when "freedom" in America is increasingly defined as "security"--freedom from uncertainty, freedom from fear, freedom from want. All of which is, in the end, not really freedom at all."--Time Out New York "In a recent interview withScience Fiction Weekly, Ursula Le Guin called Emshwiller "the most unappreciated great writer we''ve got."The Mount proves Le Guin right.... If Emshwiller is not already on your top bookshelf,The Mount will put her there." --Rambles Carol Emshwiller''s stories have appeared inThe Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Century, Scifiction, Lady Churchill''s Rosebud Wristlet, TriQuarterly, Transatlantic Review, New Directions, Orbit, Epoch, The Voice Literary Supplement, Omni, Crank!, Confrontation, Trampoline, McSweeney''s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, and many other anthologies and magazines. Carol is a MacDowell Colony Fellow and has been awarded an NEA grant, a New York State Creative Artists Public Service grant, a New York State
Book Synopsis Harvesting the Biosphere by : Vaclav Smil
Download or read book Harvesting the Biosphere written by Vaclav Smil and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2012-12-21 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An interdisciplinary and quantitative account of human claims on the biosphere's stores of living matter, from prehistoric hunting to modern energy production. The biosphere—the Earth's thin layer of life—dates from nearly four billion years ago, when the first simple organisms appeared. Many species have exerted enormous influence on the biosphere's character and productivity, but none has transformed the Earth in so many ways and on such a scale as Homo sapiens. In Harvesting the Biosphere, Vaclav Smil offers an interdisciplinary and quantitative account of human claims on the biosphere's stores of living matter, from prehistory to the present day. Smil examines all harvests—from prehistoric man's hunting of megafauna to modern crop production—and all uses of harvested biomass, including energy, food, and raw materials. Without harvesting of the biomass, Smil points out, there would be no story of human evolution and advancing civilization; but at the same time, the increasing extent and intensity of present-day biomass harvests are changing the very foundations of civilization's well-being. In his detailed and comprehensive account, Smil presents the best possible quantifications of past and current global losses in order to assess the evolution and extent of biomass harvests. Drawing on the latest work in disciplines ranging from anthropology to environmental science, Smil offers a valuable long-term, planet-wide perspective on human-caused environmental change.
Download or read book The Radleys written by Matt Haig and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-12-28 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Soon to be a major film—starring Kelly Macdonald and Damien Lewis! From the bestselling author of The Midnight Library—an “irresistible...full of clever turns, darkly hilarious spins...Even if you're suffering from vampire fatigue...The Radleys is a fun, fresh contribution to the genre” (Associated Press). Just about everyone knows a family like the Radleys. Many of us grew up next door to one. They are a modern family, averagely content, averagely dysfunctional, living in a staid and quiet suburban English town. Peter is an overworked doctor whose wife, Helen, has become increasingly remote and uncommunicative. Rowan, their teenage son, is being bullied at school, and their anemic daughter, Clara, has recently become a vegan. They are typical, that is, save for one devastating exception: Peter and Helen are vampires and have—for seventeen years—been abstaining by choice from a life of chasing blood in the hope that their children could live normal lives. One night, Clara finds herself driven to commit a shocking—and disturbingly satisfying—act of violence, and her parents are forced to explain their history of shadows and lies. A police investigation is launched that uncovers a richness of vampire history heretofore unknown to the general public. And when the malevolent and alluring Uncle Will, a practicing vampire, arrives to throw the police off Clara’s trail, he winds up throwing the whole house into temptation and turmoil and unleashing a host of dark secrets that threaten the Radleys’ marriage. The Radleys is a moving, thrilling, and radiant domestic novel that explores with daring the lengths a parent will go to protect a child, what it costs you to deny your identity, the undeniable appeal of sin, and the everlasting, iridescent bonds of family love. Read it and ask what we grow into when we grow up, and what we gain—and lose—when we deny our appetites.
Download or read book Humans written by Brandon Stanton and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 534 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller "Just when we need it, Humans reminds us what it means to be human . . . one of the most influential art projects of the decade.” —Washington Post Brandon Stanton’s new book, Humans—his most moving and compelling book to date—shows us the world. Brandon Stanton created Humans of New York in 2010. What began as a photographic census of life in New York City, soon evolved into a storytelling phenomenon. A global audience of millions began following HONY daily. Over the next several years, Stanton broadened his lens to include people from across the world. Traveling to more than forty countries, he conducted interviews across continents, borders, and language barriers. Humans is the definitive catalogue of these travels. The faces and locations will vary from page to page, but the stories will feel deeply familiar. Told with candor and intimacy, Humans will resonate with readers across the globe—providing a portrait of our shared experience.
Download or read book Lone Survivors written by Chris Stringer and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2012-03-13 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A top researcher proposes a controversial new theory of human evolution in a book “combining the thrill of a novel with a remarkable depth of perspective” (Nature). In this groundbreaking and engaging work of science, world-renowned paleoanthropologist Chris Stringer sets out a new theory of humanity’s origin, challenging both the multiregionalists (who hold that modern humans developed from ancient ancestors in different parts of the world) and his own “out of Africa” theory, which maintains that humans emerged rapidly in one small part of Africa and then spread to replace all other humans within and outside the continent. Stringer’s new theory, based on archeological and genetic evidence, holds that distinct humans coexisted and competed across the African continent—exchanging genes, tools, and behavioral strategies. Stringer draws on analyses of old and new fossils from around the world, DNA studies of Neanderthals (using the full genome map) and other species, and recent archeological digs to unveil his new theory. He shows how the most sensational recent fossil findings fit with his model, and he questions previous concepts (including his own) of modernity and how it evolved. With photographs included, Lone Survivors will be the definitive account of who and what we were—and will change perceptions about our origins and about what it means to be human. “An essential book for anyone interested in psychology, sociology, anthropology, human evolution, or the scientific process.” —Library Journal “Highlights just how many tantalizing discoveries and analytical advances have enriched the field in recent years.” —Literary Review
Book Synopsis Identified Flying Objects by : Dr. Michael P. Masters
Download or read book Identified Flying Objects written by Dr. Michael P. Masters and published by Masters Creative . This book was released on 2019-03-22 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Could “UFOs” and “Aliens” simply be us, but from the future? This provocative new book cautiously examines the premise that extraterrestrials may instead be our distant human descendants, using the anthropological tool of time travel to visit and study us in their own hominin evolutionary past. Dr. Michael P. Masters, a professor of biological anthropology specializing in human evolutionary anatomy, archaeology, and biomedicine, explores how the persistence of long-term biological and cultural trends in human evolution may ultimately result in us becoming the ones piloting these disc-shaped craft, which are likely the very devices that allow our future progeny to venture backward across the landscape of time. Moreover, these extratempestrials are ubiquitously described as bipedal, large-brained, hairless, human-like beings, who communicate with us in our own languages, and who possess technology advanced beyond, but clearly built upon, our own. These accounts, coupled with a thorough understanding of the past and modern human condition, point to the continuation of established biological and cultural trends here on Earth, long into the distant human future.
Book Synopsis The Book of Humans: A Brief History of Culture, Sex, War, and the Evolution of Us by : Adam Rutherford
Download or read book The Book of Humans: A Brief History of Culture, Sex, War, and the Evolution of Us written by Adam Rutherford and published by The Experiment, LLC. This book was released on 2020-05-12 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Rutherford describes [The Book of Humans] as being about the paradox of how our evolutionary journey turned ‘an otherwise average ape’ into one capable of creating complex tools, art, music, science, and engineering. It’s an intriguing question, one his book sets against descriptions of the infinitely amusing strategies and antics of a dizzying array of animals.”—The New York Times Book Review Publisher’s Note: The Book of Humans was previously published in hardcover as Humanimal. In this new evolutionary history, geneticist Adam Rutherford explores the profound paradox of the human animal. Looking for answers across the animal kingdom, he finds that many things once considered exclusively human are not: We aren’t the only species that “speaks,” makes tools, or has sex outside of procreation. Seeing as our genome is 98 percent identical to a chimpanzee’s, our DNA doesn’t set us far apart, either. How, then, did we develop the most complex culture ever observed? The Book of Humans proves that we are animals indeed—and reveals how we truly are extraordinary.
Book Synopsis The Trouble With Humans by : Christopher Anvil
Download or read book The Trouble With Humans written by Christopher Anvil and published by Baen Publishing Enterprises. This book was released on 2007-08-01 with total page 550 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humans¾there's no understanding them, And no dealing with them either. Or even their planet. Pity the poor aliens, whose shape-changing ability should let them take over the planet Earth before the humans even know they're there-if it weren't for all that omnipresent pollution. Or consider another set of invaders, from a planet where the weather is always mild and the changing of the seasons is hardly noticeable. They land in force and their weapons are more powerful than those of the primitive humans-but they've never before had to deal with below-zero temperatures, flash floods or tornados-not to mention volcanoes. Then there were the aliens who noticed how belligerent humans were, and gave them the "gift" of TV-like devices which would show anything anywhere on Earth, which was sure to lead to war. Imagine how surprised the aliens were when the humans took the gadgets apart, improved them, and started spying on everything the aliens were up to, all over the galaxy. Humans don't make sense, they don't fight fair, and they're making aliens throughout interstellar space think seriously about pulling up stakes and moving to another galaxy! At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).
Book Synopsis The Starlight Crystal by : Christopher Pike
Download or read book The Starlight Crystal written by Christopher Pike and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis The Book of Humans by : Adam Rutherford
Download or read book The Book of Humans written by Adam Rutherford and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 2018-09-06 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Around 45,000 years ago, something happened. We dragged ourselves away from our origins by creating culture, with tools and art and abstract thought and our newly minted minds. The cognitive revolution gave us a sense that we are special, and specially created, distanced from nature. Writers, scientists, philosophers and religions have marvelled at our brilliance for millennia. Yet we are apes, wedded to the rest of creation by genes, anatomy, and physiology, all rooted in a shared evolution. All species are unique, but are we moreunique than other animals?This question is at the root of who we are. Things we once lorded as uniquely human are not. We are not the only species that communicates, makes tools, solves puzzles, has fashions, plans for the future, regrets past decisions, goes to war, grieves for lost lives, farms, uses manipulative mind control, and has sex for reasons other than to make new versions of ourselves. We arethe only ones who do all of these things.The Book of Humansis a guidebook to this paradox: what sets us apart from nature, but places us within it. Darwin began the process of inching us back into the natural world but in this dazzling new book, Adam Rutherford will look at how we occupy an exceptional place within the animal kingdom, demystify the complex behaviours we once thought just belonged to us and, in turn, enrich our understanding of what it means to be human.
Download or read book Humans: An A-Z written by Matt Haig and published by Canongate Books. This book was released on 2014-04-03 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *MATT HAIG’S NEW NOVEL THE LIFE IMPOSSIBLE IS AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER NOW * DO YOU A) Know a human? B) Love a human? C) Have trouble dealing with humans? IF YOU'VE ANSWERED YES TO ANY OF THE ABOVE, THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU Whether you are planning a high level of human interaction or just a casual visit to the planet, this user-guide to the human race will help you translate their sayings, understand exotic concepts such as 'democracy' and 'sofas', and make sense of their habits and bizarre customs. A phrase book, a dictionary and a survival guide, this book unravels all the oddness, idiosyncrasies and wonder of the species, allowing everyone to make the most of their time on Earth.
Book Synopsis The Uninhabitable Earth by : David Wallace-Wells
Download or read book The Uninhabitable Earth written by David Wallace-Wells and published by Crown. This book was released on 2019-02-19 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “The Uninhabitable Earth hits you like a comet, with an overflow of insanely lyrical prose about our pending Armageddon.”—Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker • The New York Times Book Review • Time • NPR • The Economist • The Paris Review • Toronto Star • GQ • The Times Literary Supplement • The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews It is worse, much worse, than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible—food shortages, refugee emergencies, climate wars and economic devastation. An “epoch-defining book” (The Guardian) and “this generation’s Silent Spring” (The Washington Post), The Uninhabitable Earth is both a travelogue of the near future and a meditation on how that future will look to those living through it—the ways that warming promises to transform global politics, the meaning of technology and nature in the modern world, the sustainability of capitalism and the trajectory of human progress. The Uninhabitable Earth is also an impassioned call to action. For just as the world was brought to the brink of catastrophe within the span of a lifetime, the responsibility to avoid it now belongs to a single generation—today’s. LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/E.O. WILSON LITERARY SCIENCE WRITING AWARD “The Uninhabitable Earth is the most terrifying book I have ever read. Its subject is climate change, and its method is scientific, but its mode is Old Testament. The book is a meticulously documented, white-knuckled tour through the cascading catastrophes that will soon engulf our warming planet.”—Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times “Riveting. . . . Some readers will find Mr. Wallace-Wells’s outline of possible futures alarmist. He is indeed alarmed. You should be, too.”—The Economist “Potent and evocative. . . . Wallace-Wells has resolved to offer something other than the standard narrative of climate change. . . . He avoids the ‘eerily banal language of climatology’ in favor of lush, rolling prose.”—Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times “The book has potential to be this generation’s Silent Spring.”—The Washington Post “The Uninhabitable Earth, which has become a best seller, taps into the underlying emotion of the day: fear. . . . I encourage people to read this book.”—Alan Weisman, The New York Review of Books
Book Synopsis Where Are We Heading? by : Ian Hodder
Download or read book Where Are We Heading? written by Ian Hodder and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-21 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A theory of human evolution and history based on ever-increasing mutual dependency between humans and things In this engaging exploration, archaeologist Ian Hodder departs from the two prevailing modes of thought about human evolution: the older idea of constant advancement toward a civilized ideal and the newer one of a directionless process of natural selection. Instead, he proposes a theory of human evolution and history based on “entanglement,” the ever-increasing mutual dependency between humans and things. Not only do humans become dependent on things, Hodder asserts, but things become dependent on humans, requiring an endless succession of new innovations. It is this mutual dependency that creates the dominant trend in both cultural and genetic evolution. He selects a small number of cases, ranging in significance from the invention of the wheel down to Christmas tree lights, to show how entanglement has created webs of human-thing dependency that encircle the world and limit our responses to global crises.
