Review 555: The World Until Yesterday

The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? by Jared Diamond
My rating: 4.25 of 5 stars

Somehow I have admired Jared Diamond’s writings without ever having read one of his books. Or maybe I just thought I admired it. I did see a documentary that was based on his book Guns, Germs, and Steel and I have a copy of the book a friend gave me, but have yet to read it. I bought this book, in audio form, over ten years ago. So it is nice to have finally read some of his work.

I did enjoy the book for the most part. It is on the longer side which is why I have avoided it for so many years, but I should not have feared its length as it went quickly. His writing style is very readable. And with this book the concepts are simple, maybe too simple?

Much of the book looks at traditional societies and how they conduct their lives and compare to our modern, western lives. These traditional societies are living mostly as they have been for thousands of years, how our human bodies have evolved. Today in the modern world suddenly we have a different way of life, as far as evolution goes, very sudden.

Diamond is clear that the traditional ways are not always the best ways, and there is much in the modern world that is better. However, we may have left behind a few ways of living that would serve us better if we took that practice back up. One example is by speaking more languages and raising children in multilingual households. It is common for immigrant families to have the children speak only the dominant language and not to learn the family language, but there are many reasons why being exposed to more than one language since birth is good.

The last part of the book goes into a lot of detail about food, eating and the diseases that come from the sedentary modern lifestyles. It feels like this over use of salt and sugar is very common knowledge, yet Diamond uses very compelling examples of how the modern diet effects human bodies. When a traditional society, such as Papua New Guinea, suddenly becomes integrated into a more modern society the rise of diseases previously unknown in their society start to show at alarming rates. There is a shift from communicable diseases in the traditional world, to non-communicable, such as diabetes and heart diseases. I found it interesting what he says about rates of cancer are virtually unknown in traditional societies. Yet, the average life span is also at least 20 years less, and cancer is more prevalent the older you become.

There are some very incredible stories in here too. The chapter on dangers was quite fascinating, which Diamond relating several stories about how he was unaware of the danger he was in until much later. Also, a harrowing story of an overturned boat and his hope to make it out alive.

Review 487: The Forest People

The Forest People: A Study of the Pygmies of the Congo by Colin M. Turnbull
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book has been in my life since I can remember, sitting on a bookshelf. When I was very young my parents took some classes at the local college and this was required reading. When I got older the book somehow migrated to my personal bookshelves. Safe to say this will be the oldest book I owned unread until now.

I expected this to be a dry academic book but was pleasantly surprised that is not the case. This is a very readable, well written book.

The author, Colin Turnbull, lives with the Pygmies in Congo for many years. They are his friends, they accept him as one of them, and let him observe all of their rituals and ways of living, even sometimes going outside of tradition. This book is of how they lived their lives and how they interact with the villagers nearby that work plantations.

They are called Forest People, as that is their home, their life and it contrasts to the villagers who are afraid of the forest, who would rather cut it down than live within it. The people Turnbull lives with are the BaMbuti who live in the Ituri Forest. The villagers and BaMbuti live symbiotic lives, the villagers tend to believe they “own” certain Pygmies, but this is truly not the case. The relationship is more complicated. The BaMbuti know how to hunt and get meat, which the villagers are not skilled at, so the rely on the BaMbuti for this and in return they are given other types of food that is grown on the plantations. Sometimes the villagers need extra labor to help with he planation and if willing some BaMbuti will help out his “master”, but he cannot be forced to do so. There are some rituals the villagers want the BaMbuti to carry out in certain times, such as in marriages, for a death, or for the ceremonies when the children are adults. If it suits the BaMbuti they will go along with these rituals, but a village wedding is not accepted until the man gives meat to his in-law family.

The BaMbuti are generally a happy people, and sing seemingly all the time. Of course certain songs are sung for particular ceremonies. One of the strangest ceremony is the with the molimo, an trumpet but also a ceremony to the forest. The molimo cannot be seen by women, so it comes out of hiding from the forest and played when all the women and children are inside their huts for the night. The men dance and sing all night, or nearly, until the early hours when they get a few hours sleep before being awaken by the molimo from the younger bachelors. This ceremony goes on for weeks or months, until the elders believe the forest is happy again and they can hide the molimo away. The one used here ends up being a long steel pipe about fifteen feet long. Turnbull is surprised by this, thought it would be a bamboo trumpet elaborately carved but was told this one sounded good. Besides wood rots and then you’d need to make another one. What counted was the sound it made.

There’s so much more to say, but these notes are getting long. It was a fascinating book, glad I finally took the time to read it after all these years.

Initial quick review:

Was quite surprised at how readable this book is. This book has been in my life since I can remember, sitting on a bookshelf. When very young my parents took some classes at the local college and this was required reading. When I got older the book somehow migrated to my personal bookshelves. I expected it to be a dry academic book but it is entirely not that.

I will like to say more about this book, but going to leave it here for a moment.

Review 446: The Lost City of the Monkey God

The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story by Douglas Preston
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a non-fiction book, and you can tell because the subtitle says “A True Story”. Really, have to laugh at books that have that type of subtitle. With that type of subtitle, then you have to set your expectations low for quality. Despite that, I was dismayed when a large portion of the book went into the details of an illness the author and several other people got from their time in the jungle.

This is a book about the exploration for the mythical Ciudad Blanca in Honduras. It was also known as the City of the Monkey God, presumably the people who used to live in this lost city would worship monkeys, well they are prevalent in the jungle. One man was dedicated to finding this lost city. He isn’t an archeologist, just someone with money, time, and liked adventures.

It took him nearly twenty years, and with advancements of technology, he was able to assemble a team to do another search. The team consisted of journalists, writers, photographers, and filmmakers (which included the author, writing for National Geographic). Later it also included archeologist and anthropologists to round out the team as scientific and acceptable to the academic community. Well, it almost was, controversy still did arise and partly due to the change of government. Which yes, this adventurer did have a hand in overthrowing the Honduras government in favor of someone who was more to his way of thinking about exploring the deep jungle.

The team did find a large city that was abandoned around 500 years ago, and in fact found two large cities. They looked to have at one time had thousands of inhabitants. They also found several caches of artifacts that were still buried and left untouched since those people left the ancient city.

I could have done without the extremely lengthy discussion on the parasite and infection the author and several of the team contracted from their time in the deep jungle. Certainly, one would expect some mention, but it kept going and at great length it started to feel like another book was being written.

Overall, I did learn about something as I hadn’t heard about this Honduras exploration before, despite all the publicity. Have a feeling the author does better with his fictional writing, which maybe one day I will try out.

Review 310: The Sediments of Time

The Sediments of Time: My Lifelong Search for the Past by Meave Leakey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fantastic book.

Part memoir and part science with the evolution of hominids. Leakey starts with her beginnings, born during WWII, but doesn’t linger long on her childhood, it was just enough. Although the book is a mix, it feels more an autobiography, as it keeps going back to her life but there is a ton of science, as that was a huge part of her life and what she is deeply involved in.

Her husband Richard came from the famous Leakeys and is quite an amazing person in his own right. He overcame many medical issues, first his kidney then a plane crash, which he survives but caused more medical issues. His perseverance to survive is extremely strong. I may have to read a book about him.

The children are mentioned, and they follow in the family business of becoming scientists and help on digs, they aren’t mentioned very much. A little surprising since one daughter is co-author of this book. Most of the book discusses the finds and discoveries in the field, and how that fits into what we know and have learned about the evolution of these ancient hominids. It is fascinating and the journey takes you places that may seem unrelated at first, but no, it all fits together.

This was a fantastic book! I listened to the audiobook, which was nicely narrated. However there are photos in the book, which do help to view while reading if you have access to those.

Review 216: The Visitant

The Visitant by Kathleen O'Neal Gear
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

This was a quick read for me, as the Gears know how to write a book that keeps your interest. I’ve read many from their main series (North America's Forgotten Past) and enjoyed most of them immensely. They are a pleasure read for me.

This book is a start of a three-book series. It is told in two timelines, one is the present (around 1990’s) the other in the long ago past during the time of the native people of the Anasazi, with most of the page length to the later timeline.

The current timeline has an archaeology dig team in the same location as the other story line. There is a personality conflict with two of the team members that draws some drama, maybe unnecessary. The team also consists of local native women who are overseeing the site and dig, which lends insight as well with their spiritual understanding of objects found.

The far past timeline is focused on a murder mystery, a great evil that killed mostly girls who were already sick. The main character is the War Chief, Browser who not only lost his sick boy but also his wife who was murdered, but then the body disappeared. He summons his great uncle to help in solving these crimes. Unfortunately as the book continues the evil that is sweeping across their town is not done.

Since the books focus on so much evil and murder, I don’t think I’m going to continue reading the series. It ends well enough for the one book that it’s not left open ended. I do like how it left off with the archaeologists, particularly the two that were not getting along.

Previously Read Kathleen O'Neal Gear books  - so many.  For now I'll just post a link to the series, as mentioned above.  

North America's Forgotten Past which was previously a series titled:  First North Americans

I've read books #1 - 16 in the series, although not entirely in order. Most with 4 stars, some exceptions.

Review 171: We Keep the Dead Close

We Keep the Dead Close: A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence by Becky Cooper
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A long book, nearly too long, but in the end it was worth it. Becky Cooper weaves in a tale of a murder that took place the night before Jane Britton’s exams at Harvard. Cooper delves deep into every aspect of Jane’s last days, who occupied them, investigating anyone who may have been the killer, even remotely.

The deep dive takes over ten years of Cooper’s life, with her own becoming intertwined with Jane’s life. While keeping the focus on Jane it is inevitable that the present day and what Becky Cooper is up to gets into the narrative, and she does that in a way that we don’t have an intrusive narrator. We also find tangentially other unexpected deaths or murders with some investigations into those that relate to the same suspect as the possible perpetrator of Jane’s death.

While at moments I wished for a shorter book, I’m not sure what could be cut that would make for a better book. It does feel like misleads when going down the path of each suspect, however remote, but it adds to the fullness of the story, and to who was in Jane’s life. Even the side stories bring fullness and entirety to the work, plus everything was very well written.

Cooper also provides an overarching meaning, not just to the death, but do what Jane was doing, in academia in anthropology. I get a better sense of what it means to be a professor in an academic setting from this book than any other I’ve read. (not that I’ve sought that out, but it was informative!) There are also ties to larger movements, particularly with women.

I’m not one to often read true crime but this one was very well done. If you do pick this up, be prepared to spend some time with the book.

Thanks to Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.

Review 165: 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann
My rating: 5 of 5 stars



A great book!  It changed my understanding of the Americas, how many people were living here and their accomplishments. Large cities flourished for hundreds of years. The Amazon area was man-made 

Review 41: A Death in the Rainforest

A Death in the Rainforest: How a Language and a Way of Life Came to an End in Papua New Guinea by Don Kulick
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was captivated by this book, and still am. To be honest, before I started reading it I thought it might be a tad boring. Boy was I wrong. This book I could honestly say is non-fiction that reads like fiction.

There was a very small portion early in the book that went over some language nerdy stuff, but it was brief and didn’t drag down the book at all. Kulick stated this book was written for the layperson, not an academic endeavor like his first book. Here he wanted to give to the world an insight on what life is like for the villagers in a small, very remote village, deep in the rainforest in Papua New Guinea. And Kulick wanted to tell the story of why their native language is dying, as it speaks to a larger issue of the world today, and of the past.

The village is Gapun and Tayap is the dying language Kulick studied. The villagers are now speaking Tok Pisin (a form of Pidgin English) instead. Papua New Guinea has more diverse languages than any other country; nearly every village has its own language. And they aren’t variants or dialects either, completely different language, and most spoken by about 500 people or less. It is their way of differing themselves where they came from.

Kulick tells a good story here. He intersperses action with explanations. He strings the reader along, and you don’t mind. There are some moments where you laugh, and some you cringe, and there are moments of disbelief.

Kulick states somewhat near the end of the book that there are no undiscovered tribes left. First contact can never be again, as that is now all in the past. It reminds me of Bill McKibben’s book The End of Nature, which the premise is that all nature has been affected by humans, and this goes as well for “wild” humans as well.

I could keep going, but this review is already getting long. I hope this book will be read, it’s well written, entertaining and informative. And to learn about this dying culture is important. It is the least we can do.


Thanks to Algonquin Books and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.