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History.
Politics.
Sociology.
Nonfiction.
HTML:A ??gripping? (The Washington Post) account of how the major transformations in history??from the rise of Homo sapiens to the birth of capitalism??have been shaped not by humans but by germs ??Superbly written. Kennedy seamlessly weaves together scientific and historical research, and his confident authorial voice is sure to please readers of Yuval Noah Harari or Rutger Bregman.???The Times (U.K.) According to the accepted narrative of progress, humans have thrived thanks to their brains and brawn, collectively bending the arc of history. But in this revelatory book, Professor Jonathan Kennedy argues that the myth of human exceptionalism overstates the role that we play in social and political change. Instead, it is the humble microbe that wins wars and topples empires. Drawing on the latest research in fields ranging from genetics and anthropology to archaeology and economics, Pathogenesis takes us through sixty thousand years of history, exploring eight major outbreaks of infectious disease that have made the modern world. Bacteria and viruses were protagonists in the demise of the Neanderthals, the growth of Islam, the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the devastation wrought by European colonialism, and the evolution of the United States from an imperial backwater to a global superpower. Even Christianity rose to prominence in the wake of a series of deadly pandemics that swept through the Roman Empire in the second and third centuries: Caring for the sick turned what was a tiny sect into one of the world??s major religions. By placing disease at the center of his wide-ranging history of humankind, Kennedy challenges some of the most fundamental assumptions about our collective past??and urges us to view this moment as another disease-driven inflection point that will change the course of history. Provocative and brimming with insight, Pathogenesis transforms our unders… (más)
The history of slavery goes back far beyond the European colonization of the Caribbean. It emerged soon after the adoption of settled agriculture and should be conceptualized as the extension of the logic of domestication of animals to members of our own species. When men and women become slaves they were no longer treated as fellow human beings but as beasts of burden. They could be worked to the point of exhaustion, beaten into submission and exchanged for something else. But there was something new and peculiar about American slavery. For thousands of years, skin color had no bearing on who was seen as a suitable candidate for enslavement. It was in the Americas that people of African origin became associated with servitude for the first time.
Enjoyed this book, though I found the title a bit misleading. Was expecting perhaps 8 discrete diseases but I should have focused more on the history of the world part….The author illustrates the effects of disease from the time when there were multiple human species up to the present. He has a strong anti religion bias which seems to cause him to occasionally slant parts of the stories he tells, but everything is generally well researched and organized…. If you only read one disease book….make it guns, germs and steel……and if only two,, try the Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett, but keep this on the list….it goes furthest back ( )
I had great hopes for this book, but the more I read the further those hopes took a nosedive. For starters, one would think that the book would focus on 8 plagues in some detail. However, the author divided time into 8 periods and discussed, too briefly IMHO, plagues and diseases in that time period and how they shaped/caused history. The author claims that humans no longer lay eggs because 10-12 million years ago (sigh) a virus entered our bodies and destroyed that function. By the end of the book, there was no respect remaining for the book or author. I can honestly say that I think the author needs some help/counseling if he believes his own ideas: China did a better job of controlling Covid-19 than the UK or US. Their numbers are better than the UK or US. They could take some lessons from the Chinese. Socialism is the only way that disease is going to be eradicated. Does he really believe that China reported all their cases? This author had a political agenda and it was quite obvious to this reader. Sorry I wasted my time and raised my BP;)! 304 pages ( )
The first 5 chapters were great - interesting assessment of our ancient history Gets more preachy and less interesting as he approaches the modern era. ( )
Starting in extreme antiquity (in Earth's hunter-gatherer era for the earliest humans), the author makes a strong case for revising the explanations for many key points in human history based on the role of bacteria and viruses in those transitions. My view of world history will never be the same. This book is enlivened by genetic data previously only published in recent but paywalled academic journals accessible to few readers. The most likely causes of ancient pandemics are also explored. ( )
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
For Farrah and Zaha
Primeras palabras
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
According to Sigmund Freud, there have been three great revolutions in Western science and each of these dealt a blow to humans' belief in their special status - or what he referred to as our "naive self-love." The first, which began with Copernicus was the revelation that the earth is not the center of the universe but just one of several planets revolving around the sun. After this setback, we could still console ourselves with the Books of Genesis' claim that God created humans in his own image and gave us dominion over the land, sea and animals - albeit in a location that was astronomically peripheral. Then Charles Darwin came along and pointed out that humans are just another species of animal and that we share a relatively recent common ancestor with apes. The third great scientific revolution, according to Freud, was his own discover of the unconscious. The realization that we aren't even in control of our thought processes was, he argued, the "most irritating insult" to "the human mania of greatness." -Introduction
The idea of a world inhabited by multiple human and humanoid species will be familiar to readers of fantasy literature. Take, for example, the Fellowship that accompanies Frodo Baggins on his journey to dispose of the One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom. Aragorn and Boromir are Men, a term used to denote both male and female humans. Frodo, Sam Merry and Pippin are Hobbits, closely related to Men but roughly half as tall and with oversize, furry feet. Then there is Legolas, a slender and pointy-earned Elf with a superhuman sense of sight and hearing. And Gimli is a Dward, belonging to the short, thickset warrior-like people who live in the mountains of Middle-earth. -Chapter 1, Paleolithic Plagues
Citas
Últimas palabras
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
It is now up to us to seize the opportunity to address these iniquities and to build a happier and healthier world.
History.
Politics.
Sociology.
Nonfiction.
HTML:A ??gripping? (The Washington Post) account of how the major transformations in history??from the rise of Homo sapiens to the birth of capitalism??have been shaped not by humans but by germs ??Superbly written. Kennedy seamlessly weaves together scientific and historical research, and his confident authorial voice is sure to please readers of Yuval Noah Harari or Rutger Bregman.???The Times (U.K.) According to the accepted narrative of progress, humans have thrived thanks to their brains and brawn, collectively bending the arc of history. But in this revelatory book, Professor Jonathan Kennedy argues that the myth of human exceptionalism overstates the role that we play in social and political change. Instead, it is the humble microbe that wins wars and topples empires. Drawing on the latest research in fields ranging from genetics and anthropology to archaeology and economics, Pathogenesis takes us through sixty thousand years of history, exploring eight major outbreaks of infectious disease that have made the modern world. Bacteria and viruses were protagonists in the demise of the Neanderthals, the growth of Islam, the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the devastation wrought by European colonialism, and the evolution of the United States from an imperial backwater to a global superpower. Even Christianity rose to prominence in the wake of a series of deadly pandemics that swept through the Roman Empire in the second and third centuries: Caring for the sick turned what was a tiny sect into one of the world??s major religions. By placing disease at the center of his wide-ranging history of humankind, Kennedy challenges some of the most fundamental assumptions about our collective past??and urges us to view this moment as another disease-driven inflection point that will change the course of history. Provocative and brimming with insight, Pathogenesis transforms our unders
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