The world until yesterday : what can we learn from traditional societies?
Summary
Diamond reveals how tribal societies offer an extraordinary window into how our ancestors lived for millions of years -- until virtually yesterday, in evolutionary terms -- and provide unique, often overlooked insights into human nature. Full description
- PROLOGUE: AT THE AIRPORT: An airport scene
- Why study traditional societies?
- States
- Types of traditional societies
- Approaches, causes, and sources
- A small book about a big subject
- PT. I: SETTING THE STAGE BY DIVIDING SPACE. Chapter 1. FRIENDS, ENEMIES, STRANGERS, AND TRADERS: A boundary
- Mutually exclusive territories
- Non-exclusive land use
- Friends, enemies, and strangers
- First contacts
- Trade and traders
- Market economies
- Traditional forms of trade
- Traditional trade items
- Who trades what?
- Tiny nation
- PT. 2: PEACE AND WAR. Chapter 2. COMPENSATION FOR THE DEATH OF A CHILD: An accident
- A ceremony
- What if...?
- What the state did
- New Guinea compensation
- Life-long relationships
- Other non-state societies
- State authority
- State civil justice
- Defects in state civil justice
- State criminal justice
- Restorative justice
- Advantages and their pride
- Chapter 3. A SHORT CHAPTER, ABOUT A TINY WAR: The Dani War
- The war's time-line
- The war's death toll
- Chapter 4. A LONGER CHAPTER, ABOUT MANY WARS: Definitions of war
- Forms of traditional warfare
- Mortality rates
- Similarities and differences
- Ending warfare
- Effects of European contact
- Warlike animals, peaceful peoples
- Motives for traditional war
- Ultimate reasons
- Whom do people fight?
- Pearl Harbor
- PT. 3: YOUNG AND OLD. Chapter 4. BRING UP CHILDREN: Comparisons of child-reading
- Childbirth
- Infanticide
- Weaning and birth interval
- On-demand nursing
- Infant-adult contact
- Fathers and allo-parents
- Responses to crying infants
- Physical punishment
- Child autonomy
- Multi-age playgroups
- Child play and education
- Their kids and our kids
- Chapter 6. THE TREATMENT OF OLD PEOPLE: CHERISH, ABANDON, OR KILL? The elderly
- Expectations about eldercare
- Why abandon or kill?
- Usefulness of old people
- Society's values
- Society's rules
- Better or worse today?
- What to do with older people
- PT. 4: DANGER AND RESPONSE. Chapter 7. CONSTRUCTIVE PARANOIA: Attitudes towards danger
- A night visit
- A boat accident
- Just a stick in the ground
- Taking risks
- Risks and talkativeness
- Chapter 8. LIONS AND OTHER DANGERS: Dangers of traditional life
- Accidents
- Vigilance
- Human violence
- Diseases
- Responses to diseases
- Starvation
- Unpredictable food shortages
- Scatter your land
- Seasonality and food storage
- Diet broadening
- Aggregation and dispersal
- Responses to danger
- PT. 5: RELIGION, LANGUAGE, AND HEALTH. Chapter 9. WHAT ELECTRIC EELS TELL US ABOUT THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION: Questions about religion
- Definitions of religion
- Functions and electric eels
- The search for causal explanations
- Supernatural beliefs
- Religion's function of explanation
- Defusing anxiety
- Providing comfort
- Organization and obedience
- Codes of behavior towards strangers
- Justifying war
- Badges of commitment
- Measures of religious success
- Changes in religion's functions
- Chapter 10. SPEAKING IN MANY TONGUES: Multilingualism
- The world's language total
- How languages evolve
- Geography of language diversity
- Traditional multilingualism
- Benefits of bilingualism
- Alzheimer's Disease
- Vanishing languages
- How languages disappear
- Are minority languages harmful?
- Why preserve language?
- How can we protect languages?
- Chapter 11. SALT, SUGAR, FAT, AND SLOTH: Non-communicable diseases
- Our salt intake
- Salt and blood pressure
- Causes of hypertension
- Dietary sources of salt
- Diabetes
- Types of diabetes
- Genes, environment, and diabetes
- Pima Indians and Nauru Islanders
- Diabetes in India
- Benefits of genes for diabetes
- Why is diabetes low in Europeans?
- The future of non-communicable diseases
- EPILOGUE: AT ANOTHER AIRPORT: From the jungle to the 405
- Advantages of the modern world
- Advantages of the traditional world
- What can we learn?