As we write this the Amazon rain forest is on fire, the icecaps are melting, it’s raining plastic, and oh yeah, the latest date for the end of the world is now 2050. Seems we’ve been pretty busy in our paltry few thousand years! Human history is often seen as a slow and jagged rise from savagery to civilization, but it can just as easily be seen as a catalog of errors leading not to civilization, but to whatever it is we have now. That’s how Tom Phillips looks at it in this book, combining history and humor to give us a different view of the water we fish swim in…
Humans- A Brief History of How We F***ed It All Up
by Tom Phillips
Synopsis
An exhilarating history of humankind, chronicling thousands of years of trial and error–but mostly error–in the rise of civilization. Modern humans have come a long way in the seventy thousand years they’ve walked the earth. Art, science, culture, trade–on the evolutionary food chain, we’re true winners. But it hasn’t always been smooth sailing, and sometimes–just occasionally–we’ve managed to truly f*ck things up. Weaving together history, science, politics and pop culture, Humans offers a panoramic exploration of humankind in all its glory, or lack thereof. From Lucy, our first ancestor, who fell out of a tree and died, to General Zhou Shou of China, who stored gunpowder in his palace before a lantern festival, to the Austrian army that attacked itself one drunken night, to the most spectacular fails of the present day, Humans reveals how even the most mundane mistakes can shift the course of civilization as we know it. Lively, wry and brimming with brilliant insight, this unique compendium offers a fresh take on world history and is one of the most entertaining reads of the year.
