Oded Galor

The Journey of Humanity explains not just the evolution of civilization but the evolution of man's well being.

Humans have experienced a drastic transformation over the last few centuries. In most parts of the world man's standard of wellbeing has greatly increased in these last two to three hundred years. However, before this vast increase in the standard of living, from the beginning of civilization, man has experienced cycles of temporary improvement which quickly reverted to the previous show more living standards. Why was man was unable to sustain these periods of "wealth" until relatively recently? What caused this cycle to eventually be broken and why, today, some parts of the world fall behind others? That's what Galor beautifully explains.

The author examines humanity from it's beginning to today and looks to the future with both fear and hope.

This book reminded me of, and I am a great fan of "Sapiens" by Yuval Noah Harari and this book did not disappoint.

I was fortunate to have received an advanced copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. show less

What got my attention and led me to read this book was a citation that seemed to show that Oded Galor had discovered the writings of the forgotten German Communist Karl August Wittfogel. It turns out that I was misinformed.

The reference to Wittfogel — who really did have some fantastic insights into human history — is very brief. Instead Galor cites popular historians like Jared Diamond far more often. His book, like Diamond’s, ranges over tens of thousands of years of human history show more and manages to make several interesting points. But it’s repetitive, in many ways unoriginal, and sadly not very memorable. I wish I had liked it more. show less

Trata de explicar el origen de la desigualdad. Si bien algunas de las hipótesis comparto no me gusto el desarrollo de las mismas. Me pareció desordenado y reiterativo