Affluence Without Abundance

Download or read book Affluence Without Abundance written by James Suzman and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2017-07-11 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Insightful and well-written . . . [Suzman chronicles] how much humankind can still learn from the disappearing way of life of the most marginalized communities on earth.” -Yuval Noah Harari, author of SAPIENS: A BRIEF HISTORY OF HUMAN KIND and HOMO DEUS: A BRIEF HISTORY OF TOMORROW WASHINGTON POST'S 50 NOTABLE WORKS OF NONFICTION IN 2017 AN NPR BEST BOOK OF 2017 A vibrant portrait of the “original affluent society”-the Bushmen of southern Africa-by the anthropologist who has spent much of the last twenty-five years documenting their encounter with modernity. If the success of a civilization is measured by its endurance over time, then the Bushmen of the Kalahari are by far the most successful in human history. A hunting and gathering people who made a good living by working only as much as needed to exist in harmony with their hostile desert environment, the Bushmen have lived in southern Africa since the evolution of our species nearly two hundred thousand years ago. In Affluence Without Abundance, anthropologist James Suzman vividly brings to life a proud and private people, introducing unforgettable members of their tribe, and telling the story of the collision between the modern global economy and the oldest hunting and gathering society on earth. In rendering an intimate picture of a people coping with radical change, it asks profound questions about how we now think about matters such as work, wealth, equality, contentment, and even time. Not since Elizabeth Marshall Thomas's The Harmless People in 1959 has anyone provided a more intimate or insightful account of the Bushmen or of what we might learn about ourselves from our shared history as hunter-gatherers.

Download or read book Work written by James Suzman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-01-18 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book is a tour de force." --Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take A revolutionary new history of humankind through the prism of work by leading anthropologist James Suzman Work defines who we are. It determines our status, and dictates how, where, and with whom we spend most of our time. It mediates our self-worth and molds our values. But are we hard-wired to work as hard as we do? Did our Stone Age ancestors also live to work and work to live? And what might a world where work plays a far less important role look like? To answer these questions, James Suzman charts a grand history of "work" from the origins of life on Earth to our ever more automated present, challenging some of our deepest assumptions about who we are. Drawing insights from anthropology, archaeology, evolutionary biology, zoology, physics, and economics, he shows that while we have evolved to find joy, meaning and purpose in work, for most of human history our ancestors worked far less and thought very differently about work than we do now. He demonstrates how our contemporary culture of work has its roots in the agricultural revolution ten thousand years ago. Our sense of what it is to be human was transformed by the transition from foraging to food production, and, later, our migration to cities. Since then, our relationships with one another and with our environments, and even our sense of the passage of time, have not been the same. Arguing that we are in the midst of a similarly transformative point in history, Suzman shows how automation might revolutionize our relationship with work and in doing so usher in a more sustainable and equitable future for our world and ourselves.

Download or read book The Old Way written by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2006 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher description

Download or read book Work written by James Suzman and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The work we do brings us meaning, moulds our values, determines our social status and dictates how we spend most of our time. But this wasn't always the case: for 95% of our species' history, work held a radically different importance. How, then, did work become the central organisational principle of our societies? How did it transform our bodies, our environments, our views on equality and our sense of time? And why, in a time of material abundance, are we working more than ever before?

Download or read book Affluence and Freedom written by Pierre Charbonnier and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-06-22 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this pathbreaking book, Pierre Charbonnier opens up a new intellectual terrain: an environmental history of political ideas. His aim is not to locate the seeds of ecological thought in the history of political ideas as others have done, but rather to show that all political ideas, whether or not they endorse ecological ideals, are informed by a certain conception of our relationship to the Earth and to our environment. The fundamental political categories of modernity were founded on the idea that we could improve on nature, that we could exert a decisive victory over its excesses and claim unlimited access to earthly resources. In this way, modern thinkers imagined a political society of free individuals, equal and prosperous, alongside the development of industry geared towards progress and liberated from the Earth’s shackles. Yet this pact between democracy and growth has now been called into question by climate change and the environmental crisis. It is therefore our duty today to rethink political emancipation, bearing in mind that this can no longer draw on the prospect of infinite growth promised by industrial capitalism. Ecology must draw on the power harnessed by nineteenth-century socialism to respond to the massive impact of industrialization, but it must also rethink the imperative to offer protection to society by taking account of the solidarity of social groups and their conditions in a world transformed by climate change. This timely and original work of social and political theory will be of interest to a wide readership in politics, sociology, environmental studies and the social sciences and humanities generally.

Download or read book Creating Affluence written by Deepak Chopra and published by Amber-Allen Publishing. This book was released on 2010-08-12 with total page 85 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this remarkable book lies the secret to fulfillment on all levels of our lives... With clear and simple wisdom, Deepak Chopra explores the full meaning of wealth consciousness and presents a step-by-step plan for creating affluence. According to Chopra, affluence is our natural state, and the entire physical universe with all its abundance is the offspring of an unbounded, limitless field of all possibilities. Through a series of A-to-Z steps and everyday actions, we can learn to tap into this field and create anything we desire. From becoming Aware of all possibilities to experiencing Zest and joy in life, these uncommon insights gently foster the wealth consciousness needed to create wealth effortlessly and joyfully.

Download or read book The Abundance Book written by John Randolph Price and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This classic book introduces readers to a 40-day prosperity plan which points out to readers what "money" really is and teaches a six-step program which shows them how to free their minds from limiting beliefs.