This book changed my life. I read this book when I was maybe 17? And read it again last year, a decade and a half later.
The most powerful lesson I learned here is what anthropologists call cultural relativism. This book also taught me that everyone is under the influence of Mother Culture and her stories. I think internalizing this can help a lot with understanding other people, building self awareness, understanding politics in general, and also history in general.
There's a narrative here about ecology and generally making the world a less shitty place which is nice too, but not the primary value-add IMO (although it's unique in proposing cultural transformation as the solution).
Nevada by Imogen Binnie was another. I read it when I was working through questions about my gender. It's dark, funny, beautiful, and brutally candid account of the (a) trans experience.
Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea series follows these closely.
I'm surprised that this book, which is as about as heavy handed and nuanced as Atlas Shrugged, seems to have such positive consensus. Reading it at a similarly impressionable age I found it to be a typical luddite philosophy presented by a condescending pseudo-intellectual gorilla. It presented some obvious truths about human culture and its effects on the environment, but insidiously twisted everything to support his notion that we have destroyed some grand 'natural' order and need to stop being a culture of 'takers'. Did I mention that to Quinn all cultures are either 'givers' or 'takers'? You can probably guess which one he spent the majority of the book demonizing.
I don't believe the concept of some 'natural order' the book seemed happy to worship. Nature is always in a state of flux, and species will always compete and alter their environments. Limited resources means all species are 'takers'. I would argue that it is even more 'unnatural' for a dominant species to deliberately cede dominance.
There is plenty of evidence suggesting we are currently on an unsustainable path with regard to the continuation of our own current lifestyle. I doubt it will lead to the end of life on Earth, and (regarding the book) I'm not quite convinced that a return to hunter gatherer societies is the proper solution.
> The most powerful lesson I learned here is what anthropologists call cultural relativism. This book also taught me that everyone is under the influence of Mother Culture and her stories. I think internalizing this can help a lot with understanding other people, building self awareness, understanding politics in general, and also history in general.
Apart from that this appears to be the purpose of history, Sapiens contributed to that for me. However, it is clearly non-fiction.
This book changed my life. I read this book when I was maybe 17? And read it again last year, a decade and a half later.
The most powerful lesson I learned here is what anthropologists call cultural relativism. This book also taught me that everyone is under the influence of Mother Culture and her stories. I think internalizing this can help a lot with understanding other people, building self awareness, understanding politics in general, and also history in general.
There's a narrative here about ecology and generally making the world a less shitty place which is nice too, but not the primary value-add IMO (although it's unique in proposing cultural transformation as the solution).
Nevada by Imogen Binnie was another. I read it when I was working through questions about my gender. It's dark, funny, beautiful, and brutally candid account of the (a) trans experience.
Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea series follows these closely.