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

Much of this is material you know: agriculture, state societies, atypical, etc etc. Where Diamond differs is in his unromanticized analysis and recommendations: it's not useful to pretend that we'd be better off as noble savages, but there are important lessons we can (re-)learn about managing risk, pursuing justice, raising children, and living better in our circumstances. Diamond's illustrative anecdotes from his field work in New Guinea are profound and, IMO, helpful.

Sadly, this book will never reach policymakers or influencers. So it's up to us to recommend it, discuss its lessons, live by example and hope the next generations pick something up.

Oh, and it's slow going but worth toughing out to the end.

I was excited to learn how insight from traditional societies could inform our current lifestyles, but I was disappointed by this staid tome. Reading this is like sludging through mud. It seemed to pick up slightly towards the end, but all that Diamond seems to suggest from his lengthy discursion is that we eat less salt and practice restorative justice, or something.

He really mailed this one in...a string of loosely-connected anecdotes and observations with only a suggestion of a unifying argument or purpose