The World's Best Book Summaries
What caused the Industrial Revolution? How did it shape the modern world? The causes of the Industrial Revolution were the discovery of energy conversion and development of new resources. The idea that human beings had the capacity to convert matter to energy was a significant cause of the Industrial Revolution. We’ll cover what caused the Industrial Revolution and how it changed society.
What is the social constructionist theory? How does the fact that our reality is socially and culturally constructed influence our beliefs and behaviors? The social constructionist theory is the theory that our societies function on shared assumptions and collective “myths.” These assumptions and beliefs aren’t natural–rather, they are created by society and culture itself. We’ll cover the origin of social constructs and how social constructionist theory explains many of your beliefs about what is “natural” or common sense, and what isn’t.
What were our ancestors the early Homo sapiens like? How did they live? How did they communicate? What did they eat? How did they shape our lives today? We don’t know much about the early Homo sapiens, but we do know that they were cooperative, nomadic, and extremely knowledgeable. Early Homo sapiens may be the most knowledgeable humans in the history of mankind. We’ll cover how early Homo sapiens lived and how they came to dominate other animals.
What were the types of money used throughout history? What were the advantages and disadvantages of these types of currency? Ancient types of money included cattle, animal skins, grain, salt, beads, and cloth. These have all been used as types of currency in various cultures and time periods. We’ll cover the major kinds of money throughout history and why a few particular types prevailed.
What is confirmation bias? What can cause confirmation bias? Confirmation bias is the tendency to find and interpret information in a way that confirms your prior beliefs. We selectively pay attention to data that fit our prior beliefs and discard data that don’t. Better understand the above confirmation bias definition and how confirmation bias occurs in decision making.
What does capitalism theory say about how the economy should be governed? What kind of ethics has capitalism introduced into society? Capitalism is a system of private ownership based on the ethics of individual wealth. It gets its name from the word “capital”: money and resources that are invested in the production of a product or service. We’ll cover the basics of capitalism theory and look at the new set of ethics capitalism introduced into society.
What were the legacies of British rule in India? How did the British Raj irrevocably change the nation? We’ll cover the British legacy in India and how empires, though often oppressive and unjust, bring benefits as well. See how the British rule in India has impacted the country today.
We’ve only been working in offices and, before that, as farmers and herders, for the last 12,000 years. For hundreds of thousands of years before that, the majority of our species’ history, we lived in hunter-gatherer societies. Hunter-gatherer societies were the predominant form of societies for early humans. We don’t know much about these societies, but we do know that hunter-gatherers were probably some of the most skilled and informed humans in history. We’ll cover the nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle and evidence of forager belief systems.
What’s the difference between individualism and collectivism? What do they mean? How do these values diversely affect our behavior and what we see as “natural”? The difference between individualism and collectivism is that the belief in individualism emphasizes the rights of the individual, whereas the belief in collectivism emphasizes what’s best for the community. These two belief systems produce very different behaviors in society. We’ll cover how beliefs about individualism and collectivism that we hold are “true” are actually imagined orders. Still, they have a powerful impact on our behavior.
What is the barter system? How did the barter economy work before currencies were invented? What were its advantages? What were its problems? The barter system is a system of trading one thing for another. It was the predominant economy before the invention of money. We’ll cover how the barter system worked and the flaws in the barter economy.