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- Whispers in the Dark
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1 of 2 copies available
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?
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
June 8, 2010 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781400196265
- File size: 192262 KB
- Duration: 06:40:32
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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About 10,000 years ago, when humans moved from hunter-gatherer subsistence to controlled agriculture, urbanization began. Planting seeds for food in a changing climate brought vast changes to the human diet, culture, anatomy, and religion. Heretofore rare diseases--tooth decay, malaria, and diabetes--became more prevalent. The author's ability to explain complex events in understandable terms makes his writing appealing. However, his reading doesn't pass muster. Wells begins with a soft mumble--as if he's unsure whether we want to hear. Too many important words disappear throughout. Near the end, however, he gains confidence, slowing and enunciating distinctly. Overall, the outstanding content merits our indulgence with the initially nervous narration. J.A.H. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine -
April 5, 2010
More food but also disease, craziness, and anomie resulted from the agricultural revolution, according to this diffuse meditation on progress and its discontents. Wells (The Journey of Man
), a geneticist, anthropologist, and National Geographic Society explorer-in-residence, voices misgivings about the breakthrough to farming 10,000 years ago, spurred by climate change. The food supply was more stable, but caused populations to explode; epidemics flourished because of overcrowding and proximity to farm animals; despotic governments emerged to organize agricultural production; and warfare erupted over farming settlements. Then came urbanism and modernity, which clashed even more intensely with our nomadic hunter-gatherer nature. Nowadays, Wells contends, we are both stultified and overstimulated, cut off from the land and alienated from one other, resulting in mental illness and violent fundamentalism. Wells gives readers an engaging rundown of the science that reconstructs the prehistoric past, but he loses focus in trying to connect that past to every contemporary issue from obesity to global warming, and his solution is unconvincingly simple: “Want less.” B&w photos. -
July 26, 2010
Wells examines the positive and negative impact civilizations have had on the planet, from court hearings on genetically designed babies to the threat of environmental degradation on the Tuvalu Islands. His story brings the listener from a precivilized world to future possibilities that depend on the course of the next hundred years. Wells balances anecdotes and data with real world examples that embody the abstract concepts he proposes. However, his narration works against the material; the projection is inconsistent throughout, and at times, sentences that start strong sound breathless by the last few words. Wells's emphasis and modulation do not match the sophistication of the prose and fail to fully engage the listener. A Random hardcover (Reviews, Apr. 5).
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