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How our animal heritage affects the way we live
by Jared Diamond (1991)

The theme of the book, “[h]ow the human species changed, within a short time, from just another species of big mammal to a world conqueror; and how we acquired the capacity to reverse all that progress overnight,” would be recognisable to readers familiar with Diamond’s later books (Why is Sex Fun?, Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse).

The book is divided into five parts, part one discussing how we began to differ from our closest big ape cousins, while part two the “strange” sexual habit of human (as compared to other mammals). Part three dissects the “uniquely human” traits of ours: language, art, agriculture, drug abuse, and the potential of extra-terrestrial intelligent life. Part four, how we came to conquer the world, and the last one, how civilisations perish.

Although it could be said as the embryonic precursor of his later works, I wouldn’t recommend this book for a Diamond first timer. While still easy to read, written much earlier, it understandably lacks the time-earned eloquence and sophistication, especially when compared to his more comprehensive (and seemingly much more popular and just as accessible) later books where the subjects are dealt with more specifically in three separate books.

Tags:environment, evolution, history, Jared-Diamond, popular-science, science, social science
Diamond, Jared, environment, history, science, social science

November 11, 2006 @ 8:18 pm