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موجز التاريخ الطبيعي للحضارة
"مَن نحن؟". "مِن أين أتينا؟". "إلى أين نذهب؟"... من أقدم الأسئلة التي سألها الإنسان لنفسه، أسئلة متأصِّلة في جماعاتنا، وثقافاتنا، وحضاراتنا. وقادَتْنا هذه الأسئلة إلى النظرة المتمركزة حول الذات: فلسفاتنا وعلومنا بدأت متمركِزةً بالكامل حول الإنسان؛ هو النقطة البُؤريَّة والهدف من الكون. لكن، على مدى سنوات القرن السابق، أصبحنا ندرك أننا أبعَدُ ما نكون عن المركز، بل أيضًا أننا نحتلُّ مكانًا صغيرًا للغاية، ولحظةً زمنيَّةً قصيرةَ الأمد جدًّا.
هل يعتمد التطوُّر على التفاعُلات التَّنافُسيَّة السلبية والعلاقات بين الفريسة والمُفتَرِس؟ ما هو الدور الذي لعبه التعاون في نشوء الإنسان وتطوُّر الحضارة؟ هل أدَّى الدفاع الكيميائي لسباق التسلُّح التطوُّري بين النباتات ومُستَهلِكيها إلى إمدادنا بالمستحضرات الدوائية والاتجاهات الرُّوحانيَّة. ما مدى تحكُّم التنظيم الذاتي والتَّراتُبيَّة الهَرَميَّة في النشوء التكافُلي والتطوُّر المشترك؟ وكيف كان ذلك مِدادًا لخريطة طريق التاريخ الطبيعي للوصول إلى نشوء الإنسان وظهور الحضارة؟ هل ظهرت الحضارة الإنسانية عندما انتصَرَت الدوافع التكافُليَّة والتعاونية على الدوافع الفردية والأنانية؟ ما حقيقة وجود الميكروبات داخل أجسامنا؟ وما مدى حاجتنا إليها؟
ما هو الچين الأناني؟ وكيف أصبح عَدوُّنا؟ كيف يمكن أن تؤدِّي هيمنة الچين الأناني إلى تهديد الحضارة وتفاقُم مشاكلنا العالمية الحالية، مثل النُّموِّ السكاني، والاحتباس الحراري، ومحدودية الموارد التي تؤدِّي إلى القَوميَّة والقَبَليَّة.
هل يعتمد التطوُّر على التفاعُلات التَّنافُسيَّة السلبية والعلاقات بين الفريسة والمُفتَرِس؟ ما هو الدور الذي لعبه التعاون في نشوء الإنسان وتطوُّر الحضارة؟ هل أدَّى الدفاع الكيميائي لسباق التسلُّح التطوُّري بين النباتات ومُستَهلِكيها إلى إمدادنا بالمستحضرات الدوائية والاتجاهات الرُّوحانيَّة. ما مدى تحكُّم التنظيم الذاتي والتَّراتُبيَّة الهَرَميَّة في النشوء التكافُلي والتطوُّر المشترك؟ وكيف كان ذلك مِدادًا لخريطة طريق التاريخ الطبيعي للوصول إلى نشوء الإنسان وظهور الحضارة؟ هل ظهرت الحضارة الإنسانية عندما انتصَرَت الدوافع التكافُليَّة والتعاونية على الدوافع الفردية والأنانية؟ ما حقيقة وجود الميكروبات داخل أجسامنا؟ وما مدى حاجتنا إليها؟
ما هو الچين الأناني؟ وكيف أصبح عَدوُّنا؟ كيف يمكن أن تؤدِّي هيمنة الچين الأناني إلى تهديد الحضارة وتفاقُم مشاكلنا العالمية الحالية، مثل النُّموِّ السكاني، والاحتباس الحراري، ومحدودية الموارد التي تؤدِّي إلى القَوميَّة والقَبَليَّة.
358 pages, Paperback
Published January 10, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
May 31, 2021
If you were to ask any average person on the sidewalk the difference between plants and animals, the list of answers is obvious. An interesting truth, however, is that “self-replicating life evolved only once on our planet, because all organisms, from viruses and bacteria to humans, are designed according to the same genetic rulebook and feature the same DNA programming language.” While our subconscious accepts this notion, it is a hard one to understand in our rational mind. Humans, whales, redwood trees, mustard seeds, coral reefs, and coronavirus are all descendants from the same microorganisms that started life hundred of millions of years ago. Such a timeline is hard to imagine. To help us conceptualize this timeline, the great scientist Carl Sagan once wrote: “If the history of the earth were compressed into a twenty-four-hour day…civilization would begin just a few minutes before midnight.”
The history of civilization on this planet is one marked by both competition and cooperation. Darwin’s theory of evolution is based around the competition of genes in a gene pool and how the strongest will always outlast the weak. When two similar species (or tribes of the same species) need the same scarce resources in order to survive, they must inevitably compete. On the other hand, those species would not exist without the cooperation of early microbes that eventually led to multicellular organisms in the first place. There are plenty of examples of cooperation throughout evolutionary history, such as humanity’s domestication of animals like dogs and horses and crops like corn and wheat. “Human control of animals and plants, this much-heralded domestication, is thus a natural extension of coevolution—a determined, nonrandom event that impelled its own feedback loops.” Bertness writes, “Farming depended on cooperation and was labor intensive, but it produced greater food resources that translated into higher population growth, which then required more food and labor.”
Success is blinding, however, and as we humans have come to dominate the planet, we have exploited mother nature’s resources beyond her natural limits. The global population was 1.6 billion people in 1900. Now, 120 years later, it is fast approaching 8 billion. It seems unfathomable that we have reached this threshold, and even more so that we will be able to continue on this trajectory.
Humanity’s dominance of the globe has followed similar patterns throughout its brief and violent history, and we are sure to continue them if we remain ignorant to our own destructive nature. For example, when we first discovered fire, humanity made a giant leap forward. Consequently, we began to burn wood until we collectively realized we would run out. So we switched to peat and coal. As these fed the Industrial Revolution, another great step forward for mankind, we quickly abused them as well, which eventually led us to natural gas and oil, and the same cycle continued on repeat. Fossil fuels like these are formed by sedimentary deposits of ancient fossilized marine organisms that are buried and exposed to intense heat and pressure by tectonic plates. They take millions of years to form, and we are projected to deplete these resources before the end of the current century. Is it possible to get all 8 billion people on the planet to realize the impeding nature of these fast approaching environmental disasters? Is it possible for us to collectively take action now in order to stem their encroachment? Bertness bleakly describes how “History thus teaches us that the decline and fall of civilizations are the rule rather than the exception, and that they are often due to our shortsighted depletion of natural resources including habitat destruction—seemingly unavoidable trends given our blindly competitive, selfish nature.” The perfect example of this is the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East. What was once the thriving center of the ancient world is now a desert wasteland, as its citizens did not learn the importance of sustainable resource management until it was too late. The same thing happened in the American Mid West, as over-use of the topsoil and the erosion of grasses lead directly to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s and wide spread drought and starvation.
Human beings are famous for our short term solutions to long term problems. We love putting band aids on bullet holes and assuming things will work out just fine. In the United States, after our civil war, the period of reconstruction afterwards lasted a mere ten years and ended with things in the south hardly better than they were before, with racial discrimination lasting until the present day. With the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, independent businesses were shuttered and the people were given two checks totaling $1,800 dollars, supposedly enough to cover them for an entire year of unemployment. Despite this book being about the ecological history of the world, Bertness still finds a moment to comment on these political ideals when he writes how “Governments, rulers, and cultural mythologies, are notably conservative (in the literal sense of the term): the hierarchies and orders in place have served them well, and if new knowledge threatens that order, they strive to prevent or hide that knowledge rather than risk losing their positions of power, wealth, and control.” It is how humanity has always operated and seemingly always will. Unfortunately, politics is both the only way forward and also a glacially-paced bulwark to immediate necessary changes. The bullet holes in the environment take the form of overfishing, acidification of the oceans, deforestation, and the rise in global temperatures, just to name a few. If we humans do not act collectively to remedy these problems and create a more sustainable future, we will surely go the way of the dodo.
The history of civilization on this planet is one marked by both competition and cooperation. Darwin’s theory of evolution is based around the competition of genes in a gene pool and how the strongest will always outlast the weak. When two similar species (or tribes of the same species) need the same scarce resources in order to survive, they must inevitably compete. On the other hand, those species would not exist without the cooperation of early microbes that eventually led to multicellular organisms in the first place. There are plenty of examples of cooperation throughout evolutionary history, such as humanity’s domestication of animals like dogs and horses and crops like corn and wheat. “Human control of animals and plants, this much-heralded domestication, is thus a natural extension of coevolution—a determined, nonrandom event that impelled its own feedback loops.” Bertness writes, “Farming depended on cooperation and was labor intensive, but it produced greater food resources that translated into higher population growth, which then required more food and labor.”
Success is blinding, however, and as we humans have come to dominate the planet, we have exploited mother nature’s resources beyond her natural limits. The global population was 1.6 billion people in 1900. Now, 120 years later, it is fast approaching 8 billion. It seems unfathomable that we have reached this threshold, and even more so that we will be able to continue on this trajectory.
Humanity’s dominance of the globe has followed similar patterns throughout its brief and violent history, and we are sure to continue them if we remain ignorant to our own destructive nature. For example, when we first discovered fire, humanity made a giant leap forward. Consequently, we began to burn wood until we collectively realized we would run out. So we switched to peat and coal. As these fed the Industrial Revolution, another great step forward for mankind, we quickly abused them as well, which eventually led us to natural gas and oil, and the same cycle continued on repeat. Fossil fuels like these are formed by sedimentary deposits of ancient fossilized marine organisms that are buried and exposed to intense heat and pressure by tectonic plates. They take millions of years to form, and we are projected to deplete these resources before the end of the current century. Is it possible to get all 8 billion people on the planet to realize the impeding nature of these fast approaching environmental disasters? Is it possible for us to collectively take action now in order to stem their encroachment? Bertness bleakly describes how “History thus teaches us that the decline and fall of civilizations are the rule rather than the exception, and that they are often due to our shortsighted depletion of natural resources including habitat destruction—seemingly unavoidable trends given our blindly competitive, selfish nature.” The perfect example of this is the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East. What was once the thriving center of the ancient world is now a desert wasteland, as its citizens did not learn the importance of sustainable resource management until it was too late. The same thing happened in the American Mid West, as over-use of the topsoil and the erosion of grasses lead directly to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s and wide spread drought and starvation.
Human beings are famous for our short term solutions to long term problems. We love putting band aids on bullet holes and assuming things will work out just fine. In the United States, after our civil war, the period of reconstruction afterwards lasted a mere ten years and ended with things in the south hardly better than they were before, with racial discrimination lasting until the present day. With the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, independent businesses were shuttered and the people were given two checks totaling $1,800 dollars, supposedly enough to cover them for an entire year of unemployment. Despite this book being about the ecological history of the world, Bertness still finds a moment to comment on these political ideals when he writes how “Governments, rulers, and cultural mythologies, are notably conservative (in the literal sense of the term): the hierarchies and orders in place have served them well, and if new knowledge threatens that order, they strive to prevent or hide that knowledge rather than risk losing their positions of power, wealth, and control.” It is how humanity has always operated and seemingly always will. Unfortunately, politics is both the only way forward and also a glacially-paced bulwark to immediate necessary changes. The bullet holes in the environment take the form of overfishing, acidification of the oceans, deforestation, and the rise in global temperatures, just to name a few. If we humans do not act collectively to remedy these problems and create a more sustainable future, we will surely go the way of the dodo.
July 14, 2024
كتاب رائع يستحق القراءة… سرد جميل لتاريخ الحضارة مروراً بالتحديات الصحية والبيئية التي خلقتها ماكينة التطور ويد الإنسان والتي علينا اليوم مواجهتها والتعامل معها من أجل الأجيال القادمة!
July 20, 2020
Super fascinating and thought-provoking book! Taking a natural history perspective to human civilization is incredibly novel. Plus, I appreciate the focus on positive interactions/cooperation in natural and human systems. I don’t think positive interactions get enough attention in the fields of ecology and evolution, let alone in the history of human civilization! Also, this book goes way beyond natural history. There are a ton of interesting details about religion, physics, sociology, agriculture, germ theory, etc. Regardless of one’s background/field of study I think everyone can learn a lot from this book!
June 26, 2020
While the best-seller lists currently are dominated by the topics of race and COVID-19, this might be an excellent time escape those obsessions and look for a wider perspective on our deepening human dilemmas. Dr. Mark Bertness provides such an escape by digging deep into reality...our natural history, our biology, and our tiny place within the vast universe. As he says in his preface, he continues along the trajectory set by writers like Jared Diamond and Yuval Harari. Though Bertness has spent his career doing "hard" science and writing for other scientists, he's written this book for the reasonably-informed lay-person as well as for his peers, and has done a bang-up job of holding our interest while driving home the succinct thesis of his title: "Why a Balance Between Cooperation & Competition Is Vital to Humanity". There's nothing abstruse here; in a few hundred pages, he engages us with historical vignettes, artwork, and speculations about our past and future. He looks at politics, fairy tales, religious mythos (and how psychedelics likely played a role), ancient migrations, spices, and the arrogance with which we abuse nature. Were I to rate the book on a decimal scale of five points, I might give it a "4.75" (minor points off for generalizing dates, maybe), but I'm happy to score it a solid "5", overall, for interest, readability, and relevance to our times.
March 5, 2022
An excellent topic addressed wonderfully by the author, who has a fantastic writing style. I just wish he would have gone more in-depth into the cooperative relationships and their positive outcomes. This book could have easily been twice as long and still very enjoyable, then it would be at least 4 stars; I just feel the author left too much good information on the cutting room floor.
December 21, 2025
Увлекательная и дерзкая книга! Одно то, что автор оказывает долю доверия теории Джона Марко Аллегро о том, что христианство у истоков было культом поклонников галлюциногенных грибов и Ева давала Адаму грибы, а не то, что вы привыкли думать, — это о чем-то говорит, не так ли?
Умам, далеким от научных сфер, упоминаемых в книге, читать с осторожностью. Но все равно интересно!
Умам, далеким от научных сфер, упоминаемых в книге, читать с осторожностью. Но все равно интересно!
September 23, 2020
I found this book very interesting and informative. I would not however, recommend the audiobook. The narrator almost put me to sleep, and it was difficult to concentrate.
October 31, 2022
Good but outdated already
April 15, 2023
Read a galley version, so maybe some of what follows has been fixed or tweaked.
Although not as captivating as Jared Diamond’s Guns Germs and Steel (which the author cites as partial inspiration for his approach), Bertness achieves a fresh approach to analyzing human history in much the same way. Whereas Diamond deviated from the traditional approach of viewing history through a lense shaped by ‘great men’ and fate-determining battles to instead view it as fatalistic from the start, with geography and the eponymous elements doing far more to shape human history than any singular individuals or achievements, Bertness has attempted to insert his work as a sort of missing link between the genre of history itself and related fields like political science, sociology and natural history. Although a stretch to say (as the author does) that this attempts the same tack as the works of Darwin and Marx, Bertness does achieve a fresh approach that is at the very least interesting, though not exactly groundbreaking.
Bertness lists several overarching (and overambitious) themes that he believes crop up repeatedly in our ‘natural history’: 1. The oldest battle is between cooperation and competition. 2. Coevolution contextualizes life. 3. Self organization complements symbiogenesis and coevolution.
Bertness on several occasions falls into a stylistic trap of referring to civilization as ‘European.’ Besides such a viewpoint making this book seem immediately outdated, it creates multiple apparent nonsequiters in situations where the author has just been discussing innovations or occurrences that clearly weren’t achieved by Europeans.
The application of natural history concepts to human history and evolution isn’t groundbreaking - Bertness cites Edward O. Wilson as its originator back in the 1970’s.
The insights into mushrooms and psylo toxins on the development of shamanism and religion were interesting.
Writing and word choice are choppy at times - “Towns like Cape Cod, Nantucket and Long Island were all sites of whale and dolphin strandings” - two out of the three aren’t towns at all, and this could have been solved by substituting another word: community, location, place, area, locale.
Overall, seems like an interesting concept that is still a rough sketch that could use some follow up and shaping.
Although not as captivating as Jared Diamond’s Guns Germs and Steel (which the author cites as partial inspiration for his approach), Bertness achieves a fresh approach to analyzing human history in much the same way. Whereas Diamond deviated from the traditional approach of viewing history through a lense shaped by ‘great men’ and fate-determining battles to instead view it as fatalistic from the start, with geography and the eponymous elements doing far more to shape human history than any singular individuals or achievements, Bertness has attempted to insert his work as a sort of missing link between the genre of history itself and related fields like political science, sociology and natural history. Although a stretch to say (as the author does) that this attempts the same tack as the works of Darwin and Marx, Bertness does achieve a fresh approach that is at the very least interesting, though not exactly groundbreaking.
Bertness lists several overarching (and overambitious) themes that he believes crop up repeatedly in our ‘natural history’: 1. The oldest battle is between cooperation and competition. 2. Coevolution contextualizes life. 3. Self organization complements symbiogenesis and coevolution.
Bertness on several occasions falls into a stylistic trap of referring to civilization as ‘European.’ Besides such a viewpoint making this book seem immediately outdated, it creates multiple apparent nonsequiters in situations where the author has just been discussing innovations or occurrences that clearly weren’t achieved by Europeans.
The application of natural history concepts to human history and evolution isn’t groundbreaking - Bertness cites Edward O. Wilson as its originator back in the 1970’s.
The insights into mushrooms and psylo toxins on the development of shamanism and religion were interesting.
Writing and word choice are choppy at times - “Towns like Cape Cod, Nantucket and Long Island were all sites of whale and dolphin strandings” - two out of the three aren’t towns at all, and this could have been solved by substituting another word: community, location, place, area, locale.
Overall, seems like an interesting concept that is still a rough sketch that could use some follow up and shaping.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews