The world until yesterday

The Pulitzer Prize winner, author of bestsellers Collapse and Guns, Germs, and Steel, revisits the past in search of a better future. A thought-provoking, enlightening, and engaging book, like all of Diamond's works, which will become essential reading. Most of us take for granted the characteristics of modern society, from air travel and mobile phones to literacy and obesity. However, for the nearly six million years of its existence, humanity has had none of these things. Although the gap between us and our primitive ancestors seems insurmountable, we can still see much of our ancient way of life in the traditional societies that still exist or have existed until recently. Societies like those in the Highlands of New Guinea remind us that it was just yesterday, in evolutionary terms, when everything changed. The World Until Yesterday offers a fascinating portrayal of human history as it has been for tens of thousands of years, a past that has almost disappeared today, and offers a reflection on