The Invention of Yesterday: A 50,000-Year History of Human

The Invention of Yesterday: A 50,000-Year History of Human Culture, Conflict, and Connection

From language to culture to cultural collision: the story of how humans invented history, from the Stone Age to the Virtual Age

Traveling across millennia, weaving the experiences and world views of cultures both extinct and extant, The Invention of Yesterday shows that the engine of history is not so much heroic (battles won), geographic (farmers thrive), or anthropogenic (humans change the planet) as it is narrative.

Many thousands of years ago, when we existed only as countless small autonomous bands of hunter-gatherers widely distributed through the wilderness, we began inventing stories--to organize for survival, to find purpose and meaning, to explain the unfathomable. Ultimately these became the basis for empires, civilizations, and cultures. And when various narratives began to collide and overlap, the encounters produced everything from confusion, chaos, and war to cultural efflorescence, religious awakenings, and intellectual breakthroughs.

Through vivid stories studded with insights, Tamim Ansary illuminates the world-historical consequences of the unique human capacity to invent and communicate abstract ideas. In doing so, he also explains our ever-more-intertwined present: the narratives now shaping us, the reasons we still battle one another, and the future we may yet create.
Country USA
Brand PublicAffairs
Manufacturer PublicAffairs
Binding Hardcover
ItemPartNumber 55292774
ReleaseDate 2019-10-01
UnitCount 1
EANs 9781610397964

Country	USA
Brand	PublicAffairs
Manufacturer	PublicAffairs
Binding	Hardcover
ItemPartNumber	55292774
ReleaseDate	2019-10-01
UnitCount	1
EANs	9781610397964

The Invention of Yesterday: A 50,000-Year History of Human Culture, Conflict, and Connection

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