Post type: Book review, Date: 19-December-2020, Language: English

Author: Jared Diamond

This is the story of the third chimpanzee, who, over the course of millions of years, has travelled from the African savannahs, conquered the Earth and is now aiming for the heavens.

We, Homo Sapiens Sapiens, differ from our cousins, the chimpanzees, by only 1.6% of our DNA. The book tries to explore what in this 1.6% makes us human, making us capable for complex languages, innovation, culture, art, and architecture.

The search for the humanness begins by focusing on the peculiar life cycle of humans in comparison with other big mammals, that has resulted in us adopting the social conventions and institutions as we see today. Human sexuality is a lot different in comparison with even the chimpanzees and our other near relatives, which makes us unique. The author goes on to explore the origin of human races which is attributed to the local geographical conditions and sexual selection in the population groups. He also touches upon the longevity of humans, and relates how - until we invented writing - living up to old age was an evolutionary advantage because older people had more life experience. This knowledge could be of use to the progeny’s survival.

In the next part, he tries to explore traits that are entirely human viz. language, art, agriculture, and addiction! He tries to draw parallels from other species and emphasizes how the anatomy of our vocal cord could have possibly triggered the great leap of humankind sixty thousand years ago. It also tries to answer the more difficult question of how art was an important part of human life right from the cave dwelling days. Apparently, our evolutionary cousins and some other species are also capable of producing rudimentary forms of art.

An important fact which was new to me was about what enabled the civilizations in different continents to resort to agriculture. Humans stumbled into agriculture in regions where crops could be easily domesticated. These included wheat in the middle east, rice in Asia, millets and sorghum in Africa. However, native Americans were unlucky in that corn, the only plant that grew in their places suitable for agriculture, was difficult to be domesticated because of the seed size. How a certain species of plant could alter the course of history of a people was a stunning realization.

The fourth part of the book deals with human explorers, who drove to extinction the native species and aboriginal humans in the lands they discovered. Several of these contacts are elaborated, along with the bloody encounters most probably resulting in the genocide of the local population and extinction of other species as well.

The last part is about our (so-called) progress over the millions of years, and how - turning a blind eye toward our past - the human race is reversing it. It reminds about how the arrival of the first humans to North America some thirteen thousand years ago drove a mass extinction the Americas which can be compared with the mass extinction 65 million years ago triggered by the asteroid. The author feels that it was still the result of ignorance. But now, humans are doing it by turning a blind eye to the two clouds that are looming large. The first is that of a nuclear apocalypse which we may have averted for the time being, but the second one, an environmental apocalypse is a much more potent threat. To quote:

This grim view is captured in a sentence written in 1912 by Arthur Wichmann, a Dutch explorer and professor. Seeing explorers in New Guinea make the same mistake over and over again, leading to unnecessary suffering and death, Wichmann predicted that future explorers would continue to make the same mistakes. “Nothing learned” he wrote, “and everything forgotten!”.

But, the author ends on an optimistic note, quoting Bismarck, who believed in learning from history even after seeing many mistakes in his political life. He wrote about his life and dedicated it “to my children and grandchildren, towards an understanding of the past, and for guidance for the future”.

Loved this book!