Listen free for 30 days
Listen with offer
-
The Invention of Yesterday
- A 50,000-Year History of Human Culture, Conflict, and Connection
- Narrated by: Tamim Ansary
- Length: 17 hrs and 4 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
99p for the first 3 months
Buy Now for £16.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Summary
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.
More from the same
Narrator
What listeners say about The Invention of Yesterday
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- lukman
- 01-12-23
History told from all perspectives
an absolutely excellent recap of history that puts into perspective our current world. 10 out of 10
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Nelson F.
- 16-07-22
Not reliable enough
The storytelling is very captivating but then I started noticing some errors such as the number of people that died building the Great Wall of China (the author states 1 million, when it was a maximum of 400.000), that Chinese peasants wore silk (not true), that Mithra and Jesus share a similar life (not true that the Mithra myth states that he was born of a virgin mother, that he had 12 disciples, that he died in a cross etc).
Unfortunately, I cannot fully trust this book and it’s a shame that it wasn’t more well researched. History books shouldn’t be just about ‘stories’.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!