Williamsburg Regional Library

The invention of yesterday, a 50,000-year history of human culture, conflict, and connection, Tamim Ansary

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 409-418) and index

maps

index present

non fiction

The invention of yesterday

bibliography

1085591916

Tamim Ansary

a 50,000-year history of human culture, conflict, and connection

"From language to culture to cultural collision: the story of how humans invented history, from the Stone Age to the Virtual Age. Traveling across millennia, weaving the experiences and world views of cultures both extinct and extant, [this book] shows that the engine of history is not so much heroic (battles won), geographic (farmers thrive), or anthropogenic (humans change the planet) as it is narrative. Many thousands of years ago, when we existed only as countless small autonomous bands of hunter-gatherers widely distributed through the wilderness, we began inventing stories--to organize for survival, to find purpose and meaning, to explain the unfathomable. Ultimately these became the basis for empires, civilizations, and cultures. And when various narratives began to collide and overlap, the encounters produced everything from confusion, chaos, and war to cultural efflorescence, religious awakenings, and intellectual breakthroughs. Through vivid stories studded with insights, Tamim Ansary illuminates the world-historical consequences of the unique human capacity to invent and communicate abstract ideas. In doing so, he also explains our ever-more-intertwined present: the narratives now shaping us, the reasons we still battle one another, and the future we may yet create."--Dust jacket flap

Part I: Tools, language, and environment. The physical stage ; History begins with language ; Civilization begins with geography ; Trade weaves the networks ; The birth of belief systems -- Part II: One planet, many worlds. Money, math, messaging, management, and might ; Megaempires take the stage ; The lands in between ; When worlds overlap ; World historical monads -- Part III: The table tilts. Out of the north ; Europe on the rise ; The nomads' last roar ; Europe and the long crusades ; The restoration narrative ; The progress narrative -- Part IV: History's hinge. That Columbus moment ; Chain reactions ; After Columbus : the world ; The center does not hold ; Middle world enmeshed ; Ripple effects -- Part V: Enter the machine. The invention explosion ; Our machines, ourselves ; Social constellations in the machine age ; Empires and nation-states ; A world at war -- Part VI: The singularity has three sides. Beyond the nation-state ; Digital era ; The environment ; The big picture

adult