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    Pandora's Seed: The Unforeseen Cost of Civilization
    Pandora's Seed: The Unforeseen Cost of Civilization
    Pandora's Seed: The Unforeseen Cost of Civilization
    Audiobook6 hours

    Pandora's Seed: The Unforeseen Cost of Civilization

    Written by Spencer Wells

    Narrated by Spencer Wells

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    This new book by Spencer Wells, the internationally known geneticist, anthropologist, author, and director of the Genographic Project, focuses on the seminal event in human history: mankind's decision to become farmers rather than hunter-gatherers.

    What do terrorism, pandemic disease, and global warming have in common? To find the answer we need to go back ten millennia, to the wheat fields of the Fertile Crescent and the rice paddies of southern China. It was at that point that our species made a radical shift in its way of life. We had spent millions of years of evolution eking out a living as hunter-gatherers. When we learned how to control our food supply, though, we became as gods-we controlled the world rather than it controlling us. But with godliness comes responsibility. By sowing seeds thousands of years ago, we were also sowing a new culture-one that has come with many unforeseen costs.

    Taking us on a 10,000-year tour of human history and a globe-trotting fact-finding mission, Pandora's Seed charts the rise to power of Homo agriculturis and the effect this radical shift in lifestyle has had on us.

    Focusing on three key trends as the final stages of the agricultural population explosion play out over this century, Wells speculates on the significance of our newfound ability to modify our genomes to better suit our unnatural culture, fast-forwarding our biological adaptation to the world we have created. But what do we stand to lose in the process? Climate change, a direct result of billions of people living in a culture of excess accumulation, threatens the global social and ecological fabric. It will force a key shift in our behavior, as we learn to take the welfare of future generations into account. Finally, the rise of religious fundamentalism over the past half-century is explained as part of a backlash against many of the trends set in motion by the agricultural population explosion and its inherent inequality. Ultimately, the world's present state of crisis will force us to evolve culturally, but can we self-correct our culture to solve these problems that we ourselves, in our race to succeed, have caused?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateJun 8, 2010
    ISBN9781400186266
    Pandora's Seed: The Unforeseen Cost of Civilization

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    Reviews for Pandora's Seed

    3.5/5

    48 ratings3 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Sort of a mixed bag this book. Part of it was looking at the DNA of very early human populations, and other parts considered climate change, oil and commodity prices and genetic disorders.

      What he said was very good, but didn't hang together.
    • 3/5
      After reading Wells’ The Journey of Man and loving it, I couldn’t wait to dig into Pandora’s Seed, which promised to illuminate how “advanced” the hunter-gatherer societies were and what modern man can learn from these times for sustainability. Where there were a plethora of interesting ideas and facts, I must admit the book never grabbed me for a couple of reasons.As I said, there are fascinating ideas and much to learn from this book for sure. Who wouldn’t be interested in discovering how the world’s population explosion today has its root in the ending of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and the dawn of agricultural society? Whose ears (or eyes in this case) wouldn’t perk up at the contention that modern society is a breeding ground for illness and disease that was totally foreign to the Paleolithic era. I know I was grabbed by Wells’ claim that our modern style of living fosters conflict and war unheard of in hunter-gatherer societies. These were just a few of the gems in this book, but getting to those gems is where the problem lay for me.One issue I had with Pandora’s Seed was the feeling of reading for long stretches not quite sure why I was reading about whatever the current topic was or what point the author was trying to make. In all fairness, the point always became clear eventually, but throughout the book, I had a constant nagging feeling of being just the tiniest bit lost.This disoriented feeling seemed to be compounded by another feature of the book. Throughout, Wells raises another topic and tells us that to learn more about the topic, he (and the reader) must go here – here being either another time, another place, or both. The ‘tale’ jumps around so frequently, the reader could be excused for claiming jet lag. He skips between centuries and parts of the world, saying in order to understand one idea, we have to go…halfway around the world or back 70,000 years. I was dizzy sometimes wondering where I was or when it was, but more importantly, why I was there. The text seemed disjointed, perhaps, too ambitious, and I ended up confused a lot of the time as to the author’s point. Eventually, he would make it, but by that time, I didn’t care.In addition, I think I was expecting some grand ideas on how to deal with the fix modern humans have gotten themselves into, and there also, I was a felt a letdown from a lack of concrete solutions. I mean, let’s face it – if put to a vote, who would opt for returning to hunting for game and scavenging for berries after they’ve seen Whole Foods and Safeway? Certainly, we can want less, which is Wells’ ultimate advice, but I already knew this without reading this book.So, in the end, while the book has some interesting ideas, its conclusions and solutions are hardly groundbreaking
    • 3/5
      Spencer Wells provides a discussion of the differences between our hunter gatherer past and our more recent farming based lifestyle. He covers a plethora of implications and follows the changes in disease development, social patterns, and environmental impacts. He also comments on the future of mankind in a world with increasing population and dwindling resources. He also comments on the recent developments in global warming. I liked the book since Spencer appears educated on a variety of topics from DNA biology, abnormal psychology, anthropology, and paleontology. Spencer also is aware of others writings on similar topics such as Diamond's book on guns, germs, and steel.