By Cynthia Stokes Brown

Amazon Link

At first I wasn’t too into this book, but ultimately I was sort of glad I persevered. It attempts to document the entirety of history - all the way back to the Big Bang - in a mere 248 pages. Naturally, a heck of a lot has been omitted, so on one level it’s merely a “greatest hits” compendium. But several chapters were new information to me, and the unusual nature of our current, technology infused century becomes starkly clear in the context of large swaths of history.

The downside is that for the first half of the book, I felt like I was wading through familiar information: the birth of the solar system, early earth, evolution, and man’s initial spread across the globe came and went along with several yawns.

But at a particular point - due to my schooling in Western-centric history - things became interesting. Specifically, the colonization of Mexico and South American at the hands of Spanish Conquistadors is portrayed in a blunt and unflattering light. The author believes that the ease of Spain’s conquest had more to do with the relative susceptibility of the local population to unfamiliar diseases than any talent on the part of Cortez and Pizarro (this seems to be a key concept of another book I want to read, Guns, Germs, and Steel). This makes sense in the context of the preceding world history covered in this book: the mixing of peoples via trade routes between Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, the battles between Europe, Muslims, and Mongols, and the Black Plague, all left Eurasians hardier and technologically more advanced than in South America.

The other chapter I enjoyed was the final one, that talks about the crossroads humanity has created at the turn of the century. It’s argued that the world’s population outstripped the earth’s ability to host it in the 1980s. The immediate future concerns our species’ impact on the earth itself (global warming), and dwindling resources. The biggest problem is that despite our technological advances, there is nowhere else for excess population to flee to - we have basically colonized the entire globe. Throughout history, mass migration was an option. Presently, we have nowhere to turn - it doesn’t look like we’ll be creating bases on other planets anytime soon.

The author then suggests that based on our current course, the world’s population will peak around 2025 and fall (along with living standards) to 1900 levels by 2100. At that point, we will have achieved a level of sustainable equilibrium but at a great price.

It is suggested that humankind may be able to work together and figure out a technological solution - but that would require a very quick societal shift which based on the evidence in this book - has never happened in our history. It seems if we live up to our history, the countries of the world would rather fight over what’s left than redistribute wealth and resources - or limit the birth rate to 2 children per couple as the author suggests.

Anyhow, I don’t really recommend this book, but if you come across it in a bookstore or the library, you could polish off the last chapter in one sitting, and check out Guns, Germs, and Steel.

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