The World's Best Book Summaries
What are the key aspects of empire history? What are the critiques of imperialism? What were the benefits? In this succinct imperialism history, we’ll cover what it takes for a nation to become an empire and how imperialism shortened the distance between people of disparate cultures.
What are some examples of cultural evolution in humans? How do these examples shed light on our values and assumptions today? We’ll cover five examples of cultural evolution in humans and look at how our cultural assumptions are formed rather than innate.
What is wheat’s history? Why is it one of the most important crops in the history of agriculture? The history of wheat is so important because it may have been the species that transformed humans from nomadic foragers to farmers. It has become one of the most successful species on the planet. We’ll cover wheat’s history and how it became such a dominant food source.
How did the idea of money develop? What does the history of money tell us about our world today? The history of money is one that starts with bartering and ends in the modern financial world. Money has been one of the primary factors in the creation of a global society. We’ll cover the origin of money and how the concept evolved over centuries.
Who is the goddess Inanna? How does Inanna’s journey to the underworld follow the hero’s journey, as described in Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces? We’ll cover the Sumerian goddess Inanna’s journey to the underworld and how it conforms to the template of the hero’s journey.
What was the Agricultural Revolution? How did it affect homo sapiens, and how did it affect the rest of the animal kingdom? The Agricultural Revolution was the moment in human history, between 9500 and 8500 BC, when Sapiens started shifting from forager lifestyles to a life revolving around agriculture. The revolution started independently in China, the Middle East, and Central America. We’ll cover the causes of the Agricultural Revolution and how it impacted both humans and animals.
What were the different types of human species? How were these early human species similar, and how did they differ? The different types of human species were Homo soloensis, Homo floresiensis, Homo denisova, Homo rudolfensis, Homo neanderthalensis, Home erectus, Homo ergaster, and Homo sapiens. Of these eight human species, only one survived: Homo sapiens, us. We’ll cover the different human species and what they had in common.
What is the origin of government? How does the government rely on “fictions” to do its job? The origin of government was in the era shortly after the Agricultural revolution. As groups of people got bigger, they needed an organizing structure to help them live peacefully. We’ll cover why the origin of government (and government today) depends on shared fictions, myths we all buy into.
What is the history of capitalism? How did it originate? How is it tied to science and imperialism? What are some of its problems? We’ll cover the history of capitalism, from the invention of credit to the codependency of science and capitalism.
How did early humans communicate with each other? What features of Homo sapiens language made this species successful? Early humans communicated through complex language, gossip, and shared fictions. These advancements in language allowed our species to dominate the animal kingdom, and the later invention of writing allowed people to leave a written legacy. We’ll cover why linguistic advancements such as gossip were such an important form of communication for early humans, and we’ll look at how writing was invented.